Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1145142 in Books
• Published on: 2001-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 232 pages

Synopsis
The fact that human values are being driven out by technology is widely regretted but also regarded as inevitable if we are to continue to make progress. This book, written from the perspective of general practice, examines this assumption and shows that it is based on a series of illusions and misunderstandings."Friends in Low Places" describes typical reactions to, and the strains and expectations of, being classified as a 'professional' and discusses how we need to restore the balance of human and technological values. It has been eagerly awaited as a follow up to "The Paradox of Progress" by the same author. 'This book is cathartic. A crescendo of assenting growls will be heard across the land when they reach the chapters on managerialism and the Utopian protocols created in a world where everyday activity has to be evidence-based. This book offers a different way of seeking solutions. Planners and administrators, it argues, need to acknowledge how great is the divide between their most sophisticated models and the reality "out there" and thus recognise that the most valuable evidence on offer from those in low places is the evidence of their daily experience.'

Customer Reviews

A call to arms by a working general practitioner.
James Willis will already be known to many for his stimulating and entertaining book, 'The Paradox of Progress', published in 1995. His new volume takes up where that one left off, and employs the same style combining personal anecdote with reflective discourse based on a wide variety of sources.

Focusing on the inadequacy of models to reflect or predict the infinite subtlety of human behaviour, and the false promises of the Evidence-Based Medicine movement, Willis encourages us to have faith in our own intuitions as doctors, teachers, managers, or in whatever roles we play in relating to other human beings.

One of the many delights in this book is James Wilis as sonneteer, whereby he summarises his chapters in the form of sonnets; the point (apart from sheer entertainment, and I suspect he had a lot of fun writing them) is to underline the fact that we DO need structures in which to work, but that a supportive structure allows us freedom within which to work, in the same way that the relatively rigid rules of the sonnet still give freedom for the expression of an infinity of ideas. Think of a structure of bars not as a cage but as a climbing frame...

This book will appeal to all of us - not just doctors - who find ourselves saying of the newest edict from the rule-makers, league-tablers, guideline-writers and model-builders, "That's crazy." We have a new champion, and he deserves our thanks and support.

Dougal Jeffries, General Practitioner.