Physician Writers: Anton Chekhov

Abstract

Pursuing medicine means to a large extent pursuing medical science. A medical career also includes a substantial amount of writing, particularly for those who enter academia. Apart from science, during their professional lifetimes medical people are exposed to thousands of life stories, into which they, by necessity, intrude. Dealing with individual illnesses, and thus patients' bodies, brings doctors uniquely close to other people— even closer than other “listeners” such as lawyers or priests. Naturally, this entire sphere is confidential, but it still makes physicians more informed of the human condition than other groups in society. There is a particular group of physicians who became literary writers, some of them making a lasting mark, from Francois Rabelais (1483–1563) to John Keats (1795–1821), Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930), Archibald J. Cronin (1896–1981), and Stanislaw Lem (1929–2006), to the contemporary writer Abraham Verghese (1). Some books, such as William Nolen's (1928–1986) The Making of a Surgeon , describe the writers' own “medical” journeys, and become an inspiration for younger generations to take up medicine (2, 3). One of the extraordinary physician writers was Anton Chekhov (1860–1904), who is regarded as a master playwright …