Physician Writer - Why Physicians Write

Why Physicians Write

Physicians have a long history, dating back to Greek medicine, of literary activities. This may have its origins in mythology. Apollo was the god of both poetry and medicine. Pallas Athene was the goddess of poetry, healing and war. Brigit was the Celtic patroness of poets, smiths and healers.

It is thought that through their privileged and intimate contact with those moments of greatest human drama (birth, illness, injury, suffering, disease, death) physicians are in a unique position to observe, record and create the stories that make us human. "The clinical gaze much in common with the artist's eye."

Robert Louis Stevenson, in his Preface to Underwoods, described this unique privilege:

There are men and classes of men that stand above the common herd: the soldier, the sailor, and the shepherd not infrequently; the artist rarely; rarelier still, the clergyman; the physician almost as a rule. He is the flower (such as it is) of our civilization; and when that stage of man is done with, and only to be marvelled at in history, he will be thought to have shared as little, as any in the defects of the period, and most notably exhibited the virtues of the race. Generosity he has, such as is possible to those who practise an art, never to those who drive a trade; discretion, tested by a hundred secrets; tact, tried in a thousand embarrassments; and what are more important, Heraclean cheerfulness and courage. So that he brings air and cheer into the sick room, and often enough, though not so often as he wishes, brings healing.

The challenges of combining medical practice with writing are addressed by neurologist and pharmacologist Harold L. Klawans in his study, Chekhov's Lie.