DOES daily exposure to patients鈥� tragedies harden doctors, causing their empathy to atrophy? When young surgeons have to make their first incisions, which patients are they most likely to practice on? Does doctors鈥� archetypal dark humour belie a troubling truth about the emotional demands of medical practice? What is life without memory?
These questions and others are explored in Writer, M.D. 鈥� a collection of short stories, fiction and non-fiction, penned by doctors. Without exception, these previously published works provide food for thought 鈥� from Abraham Verghese鈥檚 compelling piece on the need for physicians to remember the art of the physical examination to a poignant essay on medical dissection by Pauline W. Chen.
Exemplifying the collection鈥檚 best prose is psychiatrist Oliver Sacks鈥檚 essay, The Lost Mariner. Writing about a patient who has Korsakoff鈥檚 syndrome, a form of amnesia, Sacks says: 鈥淚f a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye. But if he has lost a self 鈥� himself 鈥� he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.鈥� The sentiment captured in these few words is particularly poignant in the light of today鈥檚 increasingly pressing issues of ageing and mental health.
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Containing many such insights into the human condition, Writer, M.D. will leave you with much to mull over, long after you have put it down.
Writer, M.D.
Vintage