Selected Podcast

EP 1,169B - RECOVERY: The Lost Art of Convalescence

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 we can find ways to learn its rhythms and invest our time, energy, and participation. Drawing on thirty years of medicine, and on insights from practitioners, psychologists, and writers across history, physician Gavin Francis delivers a profound, practical, and deeply hopeful guide to recovery. Rejecting the idea that healing is passive, Recovery offers tools and wisdom for convalescence, and shows how tending to our bodies, environments, and perspectives can help us move through the landscape of illness—and come out the other side whole.

RECOVERY is an expert guide to the secrets of recovering – showing why we need it and how to do it better. Rejecting the idea that healing is passive, RECOVERY offers tools and wisdom for convalescence, and shows how tending to our bodies, environments, and perspectives can help us move through the landscape of illness—and come out the other side whole.

 

EP 1,169B - RECOVERY: The Lost Art of Convalescence
Featuring:
Dr. Gavin Francis, MD

Gavin Francis is a general physician with more than 30 years of training and practice in medicine. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners. He is also an award-winning writer and a contributor to the GuardianTimesNew York Review of BooksGranta, and the London Review of Books. He’s authored eight books, including Empire Antarctica, Adventures in Human Being, and Shapeshifters: On Medicine & Human Change, which was a book of the year in the Sunday Times. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.