Treating the Brain: What the Best Doctors Know

Here's a man in a white coat who gets right to the point, makes it clearly—and has a good story to tell along the way. Chairman emeritus of the neurology department at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine, Bradley is the patient-friendly doc for the rest of us, providing an easy-to-read roadmap through the research, anatomy and science of the convoluted highway and byways of the brain. “You have to go to see Dr. Bradley. He will figure out what is wrong with you!” one family doctor urged his own hard-to-figure patients. It's not just bragging. Bradley coolly tackles diagnoses from migraines to movement disorders, brain injury to neuropathies, epilepsy to cancer. None of it is easy terrain. But Bradley navigates with such ease and wisdom—gleaned primarily from his own practice—that the information, even if occasionally frightening (chapters are devoted to head and spinal cord injuries, brain cancer and other diseases of the brain and nervous system), is never overwhelming. “In good health, we need to respect and protect the brain if we expect it do everything that we ask of it.” Luckily, there's this handy guide for the times when we need help. (Nov.)