Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence

Product Information

Recovery can feel like a second crop, something to be welcomed because we have survived, but an unpredictable and strange new phase in our healing. The medical professionals who have guided us through the harvest of treatment have usually moved on, replaced by different kinds of responders to the changes in our health. We find our questions about what is happening to us are answered more slowly, with what seems like a lower priority than before.

This makes intuitive sense: until very recently, physicians had to study botany, not only because so many medicines are derived from plants, but because the study of plants is a way to understand life itself. The GP I had as a child – the one who sent me urgently to hospital with meningitis – told me later that he had to take botany classes as part of his medical school curriculum in the 1950s. It is as if, with the pharmaceutical revolutions of the later 20th century, we have forgotten something of the importance of a broader approach to recovery. It has been shown that patients recovering in a hospital bed need less pain-relieving medication if they have a view out over something green, growing and alive. This was recognised long ago by Florence Nightingale, but seemingly forgotten by the modern architects of our hospitals. Getting better is rarely something that happens all the time. Whether we’ve been seriously ill or injured, everyone has to experience the complexities of recovery as the aftermath. Aftermath is an old agricultural term meaning “a second crop” growing unexpectedly in the space left by the main harvest and it can entail difficult decisions about what should be done with these remnants. All worthwhile acts of recovery have to work in concert with natural processes, not against them. Many antibiotics don’t “kill” bacteria as such, but merely inhibit the growth of bacterial colonies and leave the body to do the rest. A doctor who sets out to “heal” is in truth more like a gardener who sets out to “grow” – actually, nature does almost all the work. Even when I stitch a patient’s wound, the suture material itself does not knit the tissues – that thread is simply a trellis to guide the body in its own work of healing.

Become a Member

Of course, there are many things we do better now: “We’re doing mental health a lot better, the range of treatments we have available are fantastic, the fact that you’re not plunging your family into destitution every time you get ill, all those kinds of things are much better.” But the Victorians and Edwardians were more enlightened when it came to valuing rest and understanding how slow recovery can be.

Francis sheds nuanced light on an often fraught and private experience, and encourages readers to reimagine illnesses as ‘stories of the mind and body’ because ‘within limits, stories can be rewritten.’ Those on the mend may gain the most, but readers of all stripes will find wisdom here.” – Publishers Weekly, starred review Written with the concision one might expect from a man of science, Francis does not linger long over his alternative prescription for health. The book is short and to the point. It’s easy to read, almost fitting in the palm of the hand for frequent reference. Moreover, he is clear that allopathic medicine is his single focus, leaving no space here for the huge and growing field of complementary therapies. We spend too much time thinking about illness and hardly enough thinking about recovery and recuperation. Gavin Francis’s literary talent combined with his years as a seasoned medical practitioner make Recovery a unique and delightful read.” –Abraham Verghese, author of T he Covenant of Water and Cutting for Stone

Complete this captcha to connect to Foyles

With a limb it seemed possible to objectify the part that needed recovery, to look down on the leg and say that's the problem, right there. Working to build up the leg was effort-ful but also visual, my progress inscribed in the bulk of my thigh, the colour of my skin, the comparison with the healthy leg at its side” Drugs can be the least of healing, and the idea that therapies must be something that you swallow or inject – that they should be pills or syrups or infusions – is manifestly untrue. I’ve seen choirs, walking groups, gardening clubs and voluntary work revolutionise the health of patients of mine, and there are many opportunities, frequently unexploited, for patients to become their own best physicians, often with the help of non-medical agencies. Dr. Gavin Francis, who works at the Dalkeith Road Medical Practice Edinburgh, penned "Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence" with a focus on giving advice and guidance to anyone who needs it.

For many of us, time spent in recovery—from a broken leg, a virus, chronic illness, or the crisis of depression or anxiety—can feel like an unwelcome obstacle on the road to health. Modern medicine too often assumes that once doctors have prescribed a course of treatment, healing takes care of itself. But recovery isn’t something that “just happens.” It is an act that we engage in and that has the potential to transform our lives, if only we can find ways to learn its rhythms and invest our time, energy, and participation.Francis’de sorunlardan bahsediyor ama hem hasta hem hekim olarak dahil olduğum sağlık sistemine dair hislerim maalesef bu yönde ve Francis’in değinileri bir çiçek zarifliğinde kalıyor. Gavin Francis qualified in medicine from Edinburgh in 1999, after first studying Neuroscience, and is the author of nine books of non-fiction. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and works as a GP in Edinburgh and in the Scottish Highlands.