The Art of Medicine

In The Art of Medicine, Toronto Western Hospital’s legendary internist Dr. Herbert Ho Ping Kong draws on his vast dossier of personal cases and five decades as a clinician, to examine the core principles of a patient-centred approach to diagnosis and treatment. While HPK, as he is fondly known, recognizes and applauds the many invaluable innovations in medical technology, as disease and its management grow increasingly complex, he insists that physicians must learn to develop an arsenal of more basic skills, actively using the arts of seeing, hearing, palpation, empathy, and advocacy to provide a more humane and holistic form of care. Aimed at medical practitioners, trainees, aspiring doctors and laymen, the book also contains interviews with more than a dozen of HPK’s patients, as well as short essays that explore the thinking of some 15 of his professional colleagues on the art of medicine.