Doctors as writers and patients: manuscripts don't burn, Chekhov and phthisis.

Abstract

It is said that doctors make good writers because they are good observers and listeners. There is now a long list of doctors who have become famous writers. Many writers, with no medical training, by working with meticulous recording and attention to detail have been able to describe the human condition and even illnesses with amazing accuracy. Leo Tolstoy, for example, in The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), describes a case of terminal illness and existential regret at a life lived inauthentically, while Graham Greene in A Burnt-Out Case (1960) depicts leprosy. Books and articles on the medical humanities often draw on Russian literature to show the interaction between medicine and literature. Two examples of Russian writers who were also doctors and had chronic illnesses were Anton Chekhov (1860–1904)1,2 and Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940).3 Chekhov practised medicine on and off for most of his life but turned to writing as a medical student to earn money. In 1888 the novella The Steppe was published as a partly autobiographical work …