Arts, History, Humanism & Culture Member Interest Network
(AHH&C MIN): Creative Writing Section
Are you
channeling your experiences as a physician into written stories, essays, or
poems? Or perhaps as a writer you lean toward a different genre — maybe another
form of memoir, or fiction. Your work may exist as notes waiting to be polished
and crafted into a finished piece; maybe you’re seeking an impetus to take the
next step.
Whatever
you write, you’re in esteemed and time-honored company. From the Middle Ages
through the 21st century, physicians have excelled as writers. Narrative
medicine is thriving, dovetailing with our contemporary emphasis on culturally
competent and patient-centered care. David Hellerstein, MD, an essayist and
comic novelist who incorporates literary methods into his medical teaching at
Columbia University, predicts a boom in physician-writers: “Science is
essential to medicine, but it is not all of medicine. And that is why I think
we are in for a renaissance of doctor-writers, something that the world has
never seen before.”
Creative Writing Exposition
Every two
years, our physician authors participate in the MIN Creative Writing
Exposition. Click below to discover winning entries.
The next
Exposition will be held in 2020. The deadline for entries will be in August; details
about how to enter will be published here. The MIN Executive Council selects
the winners, whose pieces are published in Worcester
Medicine magazine and on the MMS website.
For more information, contact Cathy Salas at (413) 596-9231 or csalas@mms.org.
Creeping Charlie by Ronald W. Pies, MD
2019 Creative Writing Exposition winning entry (excerpt)
From our kitchen window,
I see you weeding
in the back yard,
hunched over a patch
of Creeping Charlie.
My reading tells me
how Glechoma hederacea
is hard to kill,
how it spreads
by seeding, rooting,
and stubborn stems.
The Visitor by Dr. Paul Berman
2019 Creative Writing Exposition winning entry (excerpt)
It was quiet and dark in the library with one lamp lit at the end of the table to read by. This was my place to escape the pressure and stress of the hospital and I had made it a nightly habit to come and sit quietly reviewing the day’s work and catching up on the news both medially and socially. My phone was the only thing that attached me to the outside world, but I put it on vibrate so it would not break the silence of the room. Here I could be alone with my thoughts and love of books.
Read previous winning entries
