Mahala Yates Stripling - Hektoen International

“What’s a soul?”: Richard Selzer finds the spirit in the flesh

July 5, 2022

Mahala Stripling Fort Worth, Texas, United States Richard Selzer at the Elizabethan Club, 2004. Photo courtesy James L. Stripling. When he was a child, Dickie Selzer asked his father, “What’s a soul?” Julius replied, “No such thing.” When his inquisitive son pressed him further, he gave this answer: “Oh, a little bag of air, […]

Impostor syndrome: Richard Selzer’s life of doubt

March 21, 2018

Mahala Stripling Fort Worth, Texas, United States Richard Selzer in the two-act play The Doctor Stories “I am called by the name of Chekhov. Each time I hear it, I blush and cringe. He had true genius; I just do the best I can. There is an enormous difference. I do believe it is important […]

The surgeon storyteller

March 4, 2017

Mahala Yates Stripling Fort Worth, Texas, United States Detail of Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University Arriving early as usual, Richard Selzer leaned on his cane near the High Street entrance to the Sterling Memorial Library. Now at 5’ 7” and 123 pounds, this world-famous doctor-writer looked diminutive, dressed in his tan corduroy pants […]

Richard Selzer: the birth of literature and medicine

January 31, 2017

Mahala Stripling Fort Worth, Texas, United States Richard Selzer was among the first physicians to understand the power of writing and reading fiction within medicine. He helped to open up this whole territory to those of us who came after. His legacy is, on the one hand, the text—what he’s written—and, on the other […]