For years after graduating from medical school, Dr. Clifton K. Meador assumed that symptoms of the body, when obviously not imaginary, indicate a disease of the body - something to be treated with drugs, surgery, or other traditional means. But, over several decades, as he saw patients with clear symptoms but no discernible disease, he concluded that his own assumptions were too narrow and, indeed, that the underlying basis for much of clinical medicine was severely limited.

Recounting a series of fascinating case studies, Meador explains in this book how he came to reject a strict adherence to the prevailing biomolecular model of disease and its separation of mind and body. He studied other theories and approaches - George Engel's biopsychosocial model of disease and Michael Balint's study of physicians as pharmacological agents - and adjusted his practice accordingly to treat what he called "nondisease".

Throughout the book, he recommends subsequent studies to test his observations, and he urges full application of the scientific method to the doctor-patient relationship, pointing out that few objective studies of these all-important interactions have ever been done.

The book is published by Vanderbilt University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

Praise for the book:

"We owe Dr. Clifton Meador...a debt of gratitude for teaching us techniques to more effectively listen to the stories our patients want to tell." (Journal of the American Medical Association)

"It is rare to find an articulate, analytic account of experience, and even rarer to see how it happened." (Family Medicine)

"Meador's thoughtful, anecdotal style allows every reader entry into that most complex of subjects: body and mind in health and disease." (Abraham Verghese, author of My Own Country and The Tennis Partner)