Not Your Ordinary Doctor

Book excerpt: Throughout history, many doctors have worked outside the occupation for which they were originally trained. Not Your Ordinary Doctor reveals sixty such medical truants who found fame in fields other than medicine. Meet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's inspiration for Sherlock Holmes; cringe as Stalin tortures each of his eight doctors; follow John Keats, who abandons medicine to pursue his literary career. Within these pages are doctors who attended rulers such as Elizabeth I, Napoleon and Alexander the Great; artists, musicians and writers such as Somerset Maugham and Anton Chekhov; sporting heroes and adventurers including W.G. Grace and Che Guevara; and on a darker note, mass murderers like Hastings Banda and Buck Ruxton. Not Your Ordinary Doctor is a titillating collection filled with historical curiosities, fascinating whimsy and fresh speculation. These stories are by turns heroic and absurd, dazzling and ghoulish, inspired and tragic and, in the hands of master storyteller Jim Leavesley, never dull.