8.10.2006

Thoughts for Thursday - Doctors who are writers

Doctors who are writers. (Or is it the other way around?) Anton Chekhov, Milan Kundera and Ethan Canin. Pam Houston can keep her cowboys: these are my weakness.

I tell you, I always dreamed of opening the door to my Mystery Date to a guy with a stethoscope around his neck and a quill in his hand.

This is a man who can heal you physically and spiritually. A man who can take your pulse and raise it at the same time. A man who understands the intricacies of Celiac disease—and knows his way around a thesaurus.

You can keep your lawyer/writers, like Scott Turow, or your veterinarian/writers, like James Herriot. Give me the literary physician.

4 comments:

Rebecca H. said...

William Carlos Williams too!

AC said...

They can treat whatever ails you.

Also, Ludmila Ulitskaya was a geneticist, and Robert Musil was trained as an engineer/mathematician (same side of the brain, far as I'm concerned). I know more but can't think of them

SFP said...

Have you read Walker Percy yet? He's the first doctor/writer I always think of.

litlove said...

What a thought! I have a thing for psychoanalysts, but am perfectly willing to extend this to include doctors too. In the UK they can tend to be a bit dismissive of you, however, and I want one who pays some attention.