Purpose: To offer insights into all aspects of medicine: education, diagnosis, patient care, the medical profession, medical history, and medical communication; and to offer random thoughts on a long life in clinical medicine as chronicled by an experienced physician and gifted medical educator. Content: Includes 148 pages of text interspersed with photographs, artistic renditions of medical life, and the occasional cartoon. The book is neatly arranged as a catalogue of reflections on all aspects of medical practice throughout a career in internal medicine. The natural and appealing style of these essays humanizes the author in a manner that few other writers can achieve. Photographs of the author at different stages of his career personalize the book. Strengths: The author has memorialized an era in medicine in a unique and individual manner. Much as a freeze-frame still of a film enables the viewer to study and analyze a character’s face and body position, so does On Medicine Today enable the reader to see medicine as an individual effort that relies on skills of physical diagnosis and deductive reasoning—skills supplanted to some degree by the current explosion of medical technology. Just as archaeologists have studied human beings frozen in time, so will the reader be given the privilege of listening to the words and seeing the actions of medicine at a very specific time in the evolution of the profession. The author is a master clinician, a gifted educator, and an inspiring individual. These characteristics, which form the building blocks of clinical medicine, have appeal to all readers. Weaknesses: The readership for this book might be shrinking as the new generation of physicians, born and raised in the era of medical technology, takes the reins of medical education and practice. Although there is no turning back (the CT scan and the MRI are here to stay), there was a time in the evolution of medicine when Dr. Fred and doctors like him had to do it all. The dramatic social, political, and financial changes that have occurred over the author’s professional lifetime might present hurdles to younger readers who are trying to understand the issues discussed in these essays. However, these hurdles are surmountable. Patients want from their doctors what this book proffers: kindness, compassion, commitment, and the analytical skills of a finely tuned medical mind. Physicians, particularly those new to practice, should be encouraged to read these essays in order to recognize, refine, and adopt these essential qualities of medical practice Leo A. Gordon, MD, FACS, Los Angeles, California Overall Grade: * * * * http://www.thij.org/doi/pdf/10.14503/THIJ-15-5008