Tag: Summer 2012
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Richard Selzer on writing
Photography by pikimota Someone asked me why a surgeon would write. Why, when the shelves are already too full? They sag under the deadweight of books. To add a single adverb is to risk exceeding the strength of the boards. A surgeon should abstain. A surgeon, whose fingers are more at home in the steamy…
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The surgeon storyteller
Mahala Yates StriplingFort Worth, Texas, United States 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 and checkered shirt. Several people crowded around to greet him,…
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Emily Dickinson and medical ethics: the “Belle of Amherst” as ethicist
Bonnie Salomon Illinois, United States It is a conceit of many a reader to interpret poetry as it affects their daily life. It certainly is a fancy of this reader, pouring over Emily Dickinson’s poems as a literary respite. While teaching a medical ethics course at a local college this past autumn, I stumbled…
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Timelessness of the intangible
Bill Wolak New Jersey, United States Dileep Jhaveri, 2011 Born in 1943, Dileep Jhaveri is one of the most dynamic and articulate poets writing in India today. Like the Czech poet Miroslav Holub, his poetry mixes the objectivity of a scientist with an indefatigable lyricism. For Jhaveri, poetry is a theatre of ideas, emotions,…
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Literary Quiz – #4
FIRST SENTENCES OF GREAT CLASSICS TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE! Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun one day. The writer, an old man with a white mustache, had some difficulty in getting into bed. It was Wang Lung’s marriage day. I have often asked how it was, and through what series of steps, that…
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Richard Selzer on writing
Photography by pikimota Someone asked me why a surgeon would write. Why, when the shelves are already too full? They sag under the deadweight of books. To add a single adverb is to risk exceeding the strength of the boards. A surgeon should abstain. A surgeon, whose fingers are more at home in the steamy…
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“Once this Mist Clears” and other poems
Dileep Jhaveri Mumbai, India Poet’s statement: As a poet, however one may await inspiration as a chosen one, writing poetry is a matter of conscious decision. The work of the poet requires a close acquaintance with the literature of the world and other forms of art. Just as the healing touch of the physician…
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Gulliver’s visit to the Academy of Lagado
When Lemuel Gulliver left his beloved wife and children in August 1706 to undertake a sea voyage to the East Indies, his ship was boarded by pirates who set him adrift in a small canoe with only four days’ provisions. By skillful navigation he managed to land in the country of Balnibarbi and was able…
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Madame Bovary: The clubfoot operation
Charles Bovary is a country medical practitioner, mediocre, a simple man, not the brightest, but not unambitious. He reads that a simple tendon cutting operation could cure the village stable boy’s club foot, perhaps also bringing recognition to himself and celebrity to the village. At night he studies, trying to work things out. Is it…
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The death of Charles II
King Charles II of England, son of Charles I, grandson of Henri IV of Navarre and Marie de Medici, and great grandson of Mary Queen of Scots, was 18 years old when his father was deposed and executed on January 30, 1649. He reigned as king of England from 1660 to 1685. Charles was tall,…