Physician watch thyself! – Witty lessons on shitty ailments of a Dutch GP by Pieter van den Hombergh

Published by Yes!press, available from Amazon.

In Dutch: Van eigen kwalen word je wijzer. Uitgeverij Belvedere, 2021. ISBN 978-90-804345-8-5. Available at www.uitgeverijbelvedere.nl

When I met Pieter van den Hombergh during the Netherlands Society of Tropical Medicine (NVTG) annual symposium in November 2022, he was as friendly as ever and apparently in good health, which in retrospect was a pleasant surprise. You may find this a somewhat unusual introduction. Let me explain.

Pieter (Venray, the Netherlands, 1950) is a (now retired) general practitioner by training who worked as a Tropical Doctor in Kilgoris, Kenya (1980-1984) and also served as chairman of the NVTG. He gave me a copy of his recently published book, in which he describes numerous serious and less serious conditions, diseases, and ailments which he suffered from during his life. In a pleasantly light and optimistic way, he writes about his life and career and how he dealt with his medical problems over the years, ranging from pulmonary tuberculosis to jiggers and from gastritis to prostate hypertrophy as well as a wide spectrum of orthopaedic conditions. In addition, the skin problems he encountered include most of what any medical student should know about (tropical) dermatology. Mind you, this list is not exhaustive.

Far from being a hypochondriac (he asked himself this question and discusses this), it seems that most of his ailments were coincidental, apart perhaps from a positive family history for e.g. migraine; other were a sign of the times (persistent gastritis before H2-blockers became available) or a result of exposure to the tropics (jiggers, tuberculosis, traffic accident) or a hobby (running – spondylarthrosis; cycling – orchitis). There were also intriguing less well-known ailments such as moccasin feet and proctalgia fugax.

What I appreciate in this book is that he had the courage to actually write and publish it, and in such a way that it is never about complaining about the bad luck encountered, or about a show of self-pity or self-importance. He describes, with honesty and transparency, what young (and in fact also older) doctors experience when they encounter an illness and sometimes struggle to understand it, or do not exactly know what to do. In the end, the solution comes from medical knowledge and science, but common sense also helps. He learned from his conditions as he went along and wished that he had all this knowledge during his working life, particularly while working as a general practitioner, which has always been his passion.

A tremendously entertaining and informative book.