Dr Hamish Wilson and Dr Wayne Cunningham argue in Being a Doctor: Understanding Medical Practice that being a doctor is much more than simply knowing biomedical facts and having good clinical skills.
The pair, who both split their time between practising as GPs and teaching as senior lecturers at the University of Otago's department of general practice, wrote the book based on decades of experience as teachers and doctors.
Dr Cunningham said the book, published earlier this year, explored issues seldom taught in medical school.
''The traditional focus of medicine has been on the teaching and practice of biomedicine - the science of medicine, I suppose you could call it - whereas in fact to care for people ... also requires you to attend to the relationship with the patient,'' he said.
Having a deeper understanding of a patient allowed doctors to help people who did not have curable diseases.
''So ... you can still be useful for that patient even though you might not be able to fix the biological disease.''
Dr Wilson said having too much focus on curing disease could result in the patient being overlooked.
''Biomedicine has become so powerfully effective over the last 50 or so years that we have tended to neglect the person of the patient and, at times, we forget to hear their story or to engage with them as unique individual persons who may be struggling in some way, even suffering at times.''
The book also looked at the importance of doctors looking after themselves in what could be a stressful work environment.
This included ''the basics'' like getting enough sleep, eating well and taking regular holidays and also setting time aside to reflect on work difficulties.
It was hoped the book would help doctors realise they were not alone in having troubles and that everyone made mistakes.
''It is perhaps the book that we would have liked to have read when we first started out in our own practices, as it explains how we can translate our medical knowledge and skills into day-to-day work.''
The pair had been ''thrilled'' with the response to the book and were now hoping to find a publisher in England.
