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On Writing and Publishing Medical Fiction
- Jefferson Medical College; Philadelphia, PA 19107 Requests for Reprints: Marshall Goldberg, MD, Jefferson Medical College, Room 902, 1015 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107.
Who among today's practicing physicians will replace the Anton Chekhovs and Arthur Conan Doyles, the great medical fiction writers of yesteryear? Until recently, we had Walker Percy and Richard Seltzer to carry on the tradition. But now, with Percy deceased and Seltzer in retirement, the dearth of worthy successors seems particularly lamentable. Certainly every physician, whether just starting out or nearing retirement, has stories to tell. So why aren't more of us trying to compete with the impressive number of lawyers whose novels make the bestseller list? Is it merely a matter of finding the time, or is it something more that that?
Why Physicians Should Write Fiction
Ostensibly, one writes to get published and-because publishers express love through the cash advances they offer-to make money. But there is yet another reason, as exemplified by the following story.
When, in his eighties, world-famous physicist Hans Bethe confided to a friend that he had written a personalized account of the creation of the first atomic bomb but, because of the prevailing political climate, did not plan to publish it, his friend asked, “Then why did you write it?” “I wrote it for God,” Bethe allegedly proclaimed. Gently, the friend protested, “Hans, don't you think God already knows the story?” Whereupon Bethe shot back, “He doesn't know my version!”
It's important that the public knows what generations of physicians think and how their thinking has become accommodated to the rapidly changing medical scene; the eternal conflict between what is best for an individual patient and what is best for science or society.
Although physicians are not deities, novelists are. They're the creators of their characters and, if they work hard enough to get to know them, the characters will come alive and tell them what to write. They will also become close friends.
As Anne Morrow Lindbergh …
