I’ve been a productive writer recently, even if I haven’t been able to keep up the pace for NaNoWriMo. After five months of working with my book coach, the structure of my memoir is beginning to take shape. In my naivete, I’d hoped to have the first draft done at the end of the six […]
Lifelong Learning: The Pull of Curiosity Read More »
As I write into it, my memoir keeps shapeshifting. In the latest iteration, it’s about the transformation from doctor to writer. The truth is that I’m both. I’ve moved from being a doctor who writes to being a writer who works part-time as a doctor. Sometimes, it’s not easy to put myself into compartments. Yesterday
Life in Mid-Transformation Read More »
For many writers, November is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo. The goal is to finish a 50,000 word first draft of a novel by the end of the month. I am not writing a novel, but I am taking advantage of the collective energy to do a modified NaNoWriMo for my memoir. I don’t
Write Fast, Write Slow Read More »
I had a busy, fun- and food-filled weekend visiting family in New England. Being away from my regular schedule and environment had a detrimental effect on my discipline. The habits I had cultivated over the past year were becoming unsteady even before this trip, but last weekend, the scales tipped far over toward disorder. This
Don’t Depend on Willpower Read More »
In my last phone call with my book coach, she was giving me suggestions for getting more of my inner landscape on the page. She said, “Readers don’t want to read about when things are going well for you. They want to read about pain, about how you overcame it to move forward.” I had
Put Non-Doing on Your To-Do List Read More »
Happy Wednesday! I’m back after a one-week hiatus. In the two weeks since my last update, I spent a long weekend in Providence, RI where I got to see WaterFire Providence. There were bonfires lit in braziers over the Woonasquatucket River, forming a fire-sculpture installation. Before sunset, we spent the day touring the RISD Museum
Navigating Life’s River: Course Corrections Read More »
Since the days of my medical training, I have been good at setting and holding professional boundaries with my patients. It’s possible to have both empathy and limits. As a consulting physician, I struggled much more with setting boundaries with my colleagues. Once, when I was a brand-new attending physician, it was my turn to
Finding Work/Life Balance: Learning to Set Limits Read More »
When I first came to work for Atlantic City Medical Center in 1994, I learned of an annual conference to bring humanities into the training of the Internal Medicine residents. Victor Bressler, MD, who championed these events, called them “Bringing Caregivers Closer.” He was ahead of his time. This was long before Rita Charon, MD
The Experience of Illness: Blending the Clinical and the Creative Read More »
This past weekend, I took a poetry workshop through SCOSA – The Stockton Center on Successful Aging. They have a Tour of Poetry every second Saturday from 11am-1pm at the Otto Bruyns Library in Northfield. This was my first time attending. I had been asked to lead the group in October, and I wanted to
White Coat Syndrome: From the Clinician Side Read More »
I recently listened to a TED talk by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Me-high Cheek-sent-me-high) about his concept of Flow. He defines Flow as the state where one is so engaged that everything else, including bodily sensation, ceases to exist. In his theory, this state occurs when a person is both highly talented and highly challenged. From this
Getting into Flow: Skill and Challenge Read More »
