[BOOK REVIEW]

Dr. Brad McKay (Hachette Australia) 2021, 290pp, RRP $32.99

McKay, an Aussie ‘science communicator’, TV host and Sydney GP, devotes his first book to uncovering many medical crazes and cons (as its subtitle suggest), but what could have been a dry, didactic tome actually offers a lot of warmth, humour and autobiographical detail, as well as some most justified anger.

Beginning with the physical, psychological and spiritual issues he had as a teen (long-undiagnosed medical problems, struggles with his sexuality, clashes with his religious family), this then segues into the many challenging issues faced by someone like him (you know, an actual DOCTOR) in this modern day of rampant technology and equally rampant misinformation.

Chapters include: ‘Doctor Google’, where he explains the obvious dangers involved in diagnosing yourself via the search engine (and how some patients disagree with him when he disagrees with Google); ‘The Power Of Influencers’, where online celebs are rightly shot down; ‘Quacks’, as in doctors who shouldn’t be (or maybe indeed aren’t) doctors; ‘Sexist Medicine’, which analyses how female patients and indeed doctors are not listened to, and more; and ‘Detoxes And Cleanses’, both of which might be quite healthy as a one-off thing but, afterwards, do little but keep you rushing to the loo.

The ’Anti-Vaxxers’ section is enough to make you tear your hair out in bloody clumps; while the just-about-up-to-the-minute ‘The COVID-19 Conspiracy’ entry details everything that’s been happening in the last year or so (if, of course, you can bear to hear about all those bloody crazies and morons once again).

A refreshing, if not really reassuring or healing, read, this probably won’t change anyone’s mind, or their deeply-held, if deeply wrong, beliefs. But that’s okay: they can keep happily raving on about their ludicrous nonsense; all the way, it must be said, to an early grave.

Dave Bradley

This title is available through the Hachette Australia website. Click HERE to purchase your copy.

TheClothesline.com.au Logo1 - copyright 2014

Print Friendly, PDF & Email