Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: The doctor as writer

  • “Man’s greatest pleasure”: Dr. Richard Selzer, as patient

    Mahala StriplingFort Worth, Texas, United States A Yale-New Haven surgeon-writer, Richard Selzer wrote stories about his patients that illuminated their souls. But he did not really know what it was like to be a patient until a dramatic, transformational event occurred on the last day of March, 1991. Returning home from a long speaking tour…

  • The doctor as writer (William Carlos Williams)

    “[Some people] naïvely ask him, ‘How do you do it? How can you carry on an active business like that and at the same time find time to write? You must be superhuman. You must have at the very least the energy of two men.’ But they do not grasp that one occupation complements the…