Adam of Łowicz (also known as Adamus Polonus; died 1514) was a professor of medicine at Poland's Kraków Academy, its rector in 1510–11, royal court physician, a humanist, writer and philosopher.
Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) was an Italian Platonist philosopher, physician, and writer. A patronee of Cosimo de' Medici, Ficino was a key cultural figure in the Florentine Renaissance.[1]
Biernat of Lublin (1465–1529) was a Polish poet, fabulist and physician. He was one of the first Polish-language writers known by name, and the most interesting of the earliest ones.
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) was a Polish mathematician, astronomer, physician, classical scholar, translator, Catholic cleric, jurist, governor, military leader, diplomat and economist, best known for his epoch-making book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.
Paul Fleming (1609–1640) was a lyricist he stood in the front rank of German poets
Giulio Mancini (1559–1630) papal physician, art collector, and author of treatises on painting, nobility, dancing, government, and health
Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733) Dutch philosopher, political economist and satirist who lived most of his life in England and used English for most of his published works; became famous (or infamous) for The Fable of the Bees
Francesco Redi (1626–97) Italian poet, best known work being Bacchus in Tuscany
David Macbeth Moir (1798–1851) Scottish writer; a contributor of both prose and verse to the magazines, and particularly, with the signature of Delta, to Blackwood's Magazine
Mungo Park (1771–1806) Scottish explorer of the African continent
Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805) German writer, poet, essayist and dramatist; friend of Goethe. He was an army surgeon before achieving fame as a writer.
Doris Bell Ball (1897–1987) wrote under the pseudonym "Josephine Bell"; a British detective novelist who wrote more than forty books; a founding member of the Crime Writers Association[6]
Hans Carossa (1878–1956) German novelist and poet, known mostly for his autobiographical novels, and his innere Emigration (inner emigration) during the Nazi era.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline pen name of French writer Louis-Ferdinand Destouches (1894–1961) developed a new style of writing that modernized both French and World literature
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) celebrated Russian short-story writer and playwright[7]
Georges Duhamel (1884–1966) French author who, in 1920, published Confession de minuit featuring the anti-hero Salavin; in 1935, elected member of Académie Française
Havelock Ellis (1859–1940) British writer and poet, author of The Psychology of Sex
Rudolph Fisher (1897–1934) African-American writer who was an active participant in the Harlem Renaissance, primarily as a novelist, but also as a musician
R. Austin Freeman (1862–1943) British writer of detective stories, most featuring the medico-legal forensic investigator Dr Thorndyke. He invented the inverted detective story[11]
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809–1894) one of the best regarded American poets of the 19th century; helped found the literary magazine The Atlantic Monthly, his collected essays published as The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, highly popular in its day
David H. Keller (1880–1966) (most often published as David H. Keller, MD, but also known by the pseudonyms Monk Smith, Matthew Smith, Amy Worth, Henry Cecil, Cecilia Henry and Jacobus Hubelaire); a writer for pulp magazines in the mid-20th century who wrote science fiction, fantasy and horror.
Arabella Kenealy (1859–1938), English graduate of the London School of Medicine for Women, she practiced medicine in London and Watford (1888–1894)and authored many works of fiction, including the novel Dr. Janet of Harley Street (1893).
C. Louis Leipoldt (1880–1947) South African poet who wrote novels, plays, stories, children's books, cookbooks and a travel diary; numbered amongst the greatest of the Afrikaner poets
S. Weir Mitchell (1829–1914) prominent American neurologist who wrote short stories, poetry and more than a dozen novels (Hugh Wynne, Dr North, Characteristics), including the celebrated fictional story The Strange Case of George Dedlow.[14]
Mori Ōgai or Mori Rintaro (1862–1922) Japanese translator, novelist and poet; The Wild Geese is considered his major work; began as a writer of partly autobiographical fiction with strong overtones of German Romantic writings; midway in his career he shifted to historical novels
Jose P. Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino polymath, nationalist and the most prominent advocate for reforms in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era; a polyglot conversant in at least ten languages, he was a prolific poet, essayist, diarist, correspondent, and novelist whose most famous works were his two novels, Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo
Sir Ronald Ross (1857–1932) a "Renaissance man"; demonstrated the life cycle of the malarial parasite; made contributions in pure and epidemiologic mathematics, and wrote novels, plays and poetry
Mokichi Saitō (1882–1953) Japanese poet of the Taishō period, a member of Araragi school; by the time of his death, he had written 17 collections of poems and 17,907 poems; family doctor of author Ryūnosuke Akutagawa and assisted in his suicide; novelist Kita Morio is his second son
Milan Savić (1845–1930) Serbian writer and physician.
Jovan Stejić (1803–1853) Serbian writer and physician.
Henry Thompson, (1820–1904) indefatigable British polymath, scholar and novelist
Margaret Todd (c. 1859 – 1918) Scottish writer and doctor who wrote under the pen name Graham Travers and published several novels including Mona Maclean, Medical Student.
Shaul Tchernichovsky (1875–1943) Jewish-Russian military physician during the First World War; decorated by the Russian government; nomadic life spent writing, translating, editing
Adolfo Valderrama (1834–1902) Chilean man of letters and senator[17]
Vladislav Vančura (1891–1942) Czech author, scriptwriter and film director
Frederik Willem van Eeden (1860–1932) started a literary periodical, founded an agricultural colony, translated Rabindranath Tagore's work into Dutch, and wrote social and literary treatises in addition to fiction, poetry, and plays
Simon Vestdijk (1898–1971) a Dutch doctor, writer, poet and translator.
Ernst Weiß (1882–1940) Jewish-Austrian writer, friend of Kafka, died by his own hand in Paris in 1940 as the Nazis entered the city
Charlotte Wolff (1897–1986) Jewish-German psychoanalyst and sexologist, author of poetry and novels, and one of few scientifically trained investigators of the diagnostic significance of the hand (Studies in Handreading, 1936)[19]
Hans Zinsser (1878–1940) American physician, bacteriologist, and prolific author. Author of over 200 books and medical articles, perhaps best remembered for his 1935 book, Rats, Lice and History.
Martin Bax (born 1933) British founder and editor of the literary journal Ambit (1959); a developmental pediatrician and editor of the journal, Developmental and Child Neurology. He is also author of the cult novel, The Hospital Ship.
Rafael Campo (born 1964) director of the Harvard Program in the Medical Humanities; his practice serves mostly Latinos, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people, and people with HIV
Alex Comfort (1920–2000) British writer and poet, author of The Joy of Sex and a science fiction novel, Tetrarch
Robin Cook (born 1940), American author of best-selling novels, including Coma; nearly all his books deal with hot medical issues of the day, from bioterrorism to organ donation
Jacques Ferron (1921–85) Canadian author who founded the Parti Rhinocéros, which he described as "an intellectual guerrilla party"
Michael Fitzwilliam, pseudonym of J. B. Lyons (1922–1997), professor of medical history at the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, who wrote fiction in the 1960s[22]
Alice Weaver Flaherty (born ) American neurologist, author of The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain
Viktor Frankl (1905–1997) Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, author of Man's Search for Meaning
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), Austrian psychoanalyst, author of many books prized as much for their literary qualities.
Graeme Garden (born 1943) British comedy writer and performer from Scotland, actor, television director, and author, he became well known as a member of The Goodies comedy trio; author of a novel The Seventh Man
Peter Goldsworthy (1951) Australian writer who has won many awards for his short stories, poetry, novels, and opera libretti
Richard Gordon, pen name of Gordon Ostlere (1921–2017) English author of novels, screenplays for film and television and accounts of popular history; most famous for comic novels on a medical theme starting with Doctor in the House, and their film, television and stage adaptations; The Alarming History of Medicine was published in 1993 followed by The Alarming History of Sex
John Grant (born 1933) English author who writes under the pen name Jonathan Gash. He is the author of the Lovejoy series of novels
Miroslav Holub (1923–1998) Czech poet, heavily influenced by his experiences as an immunologist, wrote many poems using his scientific knowledge to poetic effect
Richard Hooker (1924–1997) American writer and surgeon who wrote under the pseudonym Richard Hooker. His most famous work was MASH (1968)
Wil Huygen (1923–2009) Dutch author and painter, best known for the picture books on gnomes
Yusuf Idris, also Yusif Idris (1927–91) Egyptian writer of plays, short stories, and novels who wrote realistic stories about ordinary and poor people. Many of his works are in the Egyptian vernacular, and he was considered a master of the short story
P. C. Jersild (born 1935) Swedish writer, best known for Barnens ö(The Island of the Children) filmed in 1980 by Kay Pollak
Harold L. Klawans (1937–98), professor of neurology and pharmacology, author of nonfiction and fiction works; wrote Chekhov's Lie, about the challenges of combining a medical career with writing
Bernard Knight, CBE (born 1931) has written about thirty books, including contemporary crime fiction, historical novels about Wales, biography, non-fiction popular works on forensic medicine, twelve medico-legal textbooks and the current highly acclaimed Crowner John Mysteries series of 12th-century historical mysteries[24]
Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) Polish science fiction, philosophical and satirical writer whose books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies
Carlo Levi (1902–1975) Italian non practising physician, active anti-fascist, painter, novelist, essayist, author of the influential novel Christ Stopped at Eboli
Robert Jay Lifton (born 1926) psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of wars and political violence
John E. Mack (1929–2004) Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, also considered an authority on the spiritual or transformational effects of alleged alien-encounter experiences
J. Nozipo Maraire (born 1966) Zimbabwean writer; author of Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter
Félix Martí Ibáñez (1912–1972) Spanish author and minister for the Republic during the Spanish Civil War; exiled during Franco's era, he became a United States citizen and published the popular MD magazine in 1950s
Alexander McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, (born 1948) Rhodesian-born Scottish writer and emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland; writer of fiction, most widely known as the creator of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series
Jed Mercurio (born 1966) British writer who also writes under the name John MacUre; created the television series Cardiac Arrest and Bodies; has also written and directed for The Grimleys
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller, CBE (1934–2019) British theatre and opera director, author, television presenter, humorist and sculptor
Amitabh Mitra (born 1955) South African poet of Indian origin, working at Cecilia Makiwane Hospital in Mdantsane township
Merrill Moore (1903–57) contributor to The Fugitive, became a member of the great literary circle that started the "modern Southern literature," the Southern Agrarian Movement; most prolific sonneteer ever, he wrote over forty thousand sonnets[25]
Taslima Nasrin (also spelled Taslima Nasreen and popularly referred to as 'Taslima', born 1962) Bengali Bangladeshi author and feminist who writes about the treatment of women in Islam; lives in exile in India and has received death threats from fundamentalists
Danielle Ofri Author of What Doctors Feel;Incidental Findings;Medicine in Translation;What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear;When We Do Harm,andSingular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue. Internist at Bellevue Hospital and Professor of Medicine at NYU School of Medicine. Editor-in-chief of Bellevue Literary Review.
Ferdie Pacheco (1927–2017) prolific author and painter, nicknamed "The Fight Doctor"; personal physician of Muhammad Ali
M. Scott Peck (1936–2005), American psychiatrist whose The Road Less Traveled sold more than seven million copies and was on The New York Times best-seller list for over six years
Walker Percy (1916–1990) American Southern author whose interests included philosophy and semiotics[27]
Steve Pieczenik (born 1943) is author of psycho-political thrillers and the co-creator of the best-selling Tom Clancy's Op-Center and Tom Clancy's Net Force paperback series[28]
Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) Hungarian-British philosopher of science, economist, trained as a physician
Stephen Potts (born 1957) British author of children's books
Theodore Isaac Rubin (1923–2019) iconoclastic psychiatrist, wrote more than twenty-five works of fiction and nonfiction; his David and Lisa was made into an acclaimed film in 1962
Oliver Wolf Sacks (1933–2015) wrote popular books about his patients (e.g. The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat), the most famous of which is Awakenings, which was adapted into a film starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro
Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi (15 January 1936 in Tabriz – 23 November 1985 in Paris), Iranian physician (psychiatrist) and writer
Ferrol Sams (1922–2013) American novelist; author of Run with the Horsemen, who draws heavily on southern storytelling tradition
Moacyr Scliar (1937–2011) Jewish-Brazilian writer; most of his writing centers on issues of Jewish identity in the Diaspora and particularly on being Jewish in Brazil
Richard Selzer (1928–2016) American author of such celebrated works as Mortal Lessons, Confessions of a Knife, Letters to a Young Doctor and Taking the World in for Repairs which blur the line between case reporting and fiction[29]
Samuel Shem, pen-name Stephen Joseph Bergman (born 1944) wrote The House of God and Mount Misery, both fictional but close-to-real first-hand descriptions of the training of doctors[30]
David Shrayer-Petrov (born 1936) Russian-American fiction writer, poet, and essayist, best known for his Russian trilogy of novels about Jewish refuseniks and for his collections of short stories Jonah and Sarah, Autumn in Yalta and Dinner with Stalin, all of which feature medical themes and characters who are doctors and nurses. He served as a military physician in the Soviet Union, practiced as an endocrinologist, worked as a research microbiologist and oncologist.
Frank Slaughter, pseudonym C.V. Terry (1908–2001) American bestselling novelist whose themes include history, the Biblical world, new findings in medical research and technology; wrote Doctors' Wives[31]
Ken Strauss (born 1953) novelist who helps promote the work of other physician writers
Han Suyin (pen name of Elizabeth Comber, born Rosalie Elisabeth; 1917–2012), Chinese-born author of several books on modern China, novels set in East Asia, and autobiographical works. She long resided in Lausanne and wrote in English and French.
Raymond Tallis (born 1946) British author has published a novel, three volumes of poetry and over a dozen books on philosophy, literary theory, art and cultural criticism; in 2004 he was identified in Prospect magazine as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the United Kingdom; wrote The Enduring Significance of Parmenides: Unthinkable Thought
Lewis Thomas (1913–1993) celebrated American essayist and poet
Mario Tobino (1910–1991) Italian psychiatrist, poet, writer of several novels about his war experiences and his professional encounters with mental suffering and social dislocation.
Leonid Tsypkin (1926–1982) Jewish-Russian writer born in Minsk, best known for his book Summer in Baden-Baden
Vaino Vahing (1940–2008) former psychiatrist, one of the most famous and gifted of Estonian writers; most of his publications date from the 1970s and '80s.
James White (1928–1999) wrote the Sector General Series about a hospital in space, but was not a physician. He wanted to be one, but "he had to go out and work" (see article in Wikipedia and author's web site.)
William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and GP.
Tim Willocks (born 1957) British novelist whose work usually features a central character with extensive medical knowledge (especially of drugs) and martial arts ability (Willocks is a black belt in Shotokan karate)
F. Paul Wilson (born 1946) writes novels and short stories primarily in the science fiction and horror genres
Irvin Yalom (born 1931) existentialist and psychotherapist; produced a number of novels and also experimented with writing techniques; in Everyday Gets a Little Closer he invited a patient to co-write about the experience of therapy
Danielle Ofri, internist at Bellevue Hospital and professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine. Editor of Bellevue Literary Review. Author of What Doctors Feel;Incidental Findings;Medicine in Translation;What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear;When We Do Harm,andSingular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue. Ofri
João Guimarães Rosa (1908 – 1967)Brazilian novelist, short story writer, poet and diplomat.
Augusto Cury (1958-) Brazilian physician, psychiatrist, psychotherapist and writer.
Antônio Drauzio Varella (1943-)Brazilian doctor, educator, scientist and medical science popularizer in the press and TV, as well as best-selling author.
Worldwide organizations
In 1955 a group of physician-writers created the International Federation of Societies of Physician-Writers (FISEM). One of the founders was Dr. André Soubiran, author of Hommes en blanc (The Doctors). Other founders included Italian Professors Nasi and Lombroso, Belgian Drs. Sévery and Thiriet, Swiss physicians Junod and René Kaech, and eminent French writers of the medical academy. Dr. Mirko Skoficz was a key figure at the first FISEM congress in San Remo, Italy, along with his wife, Italian film star Gina Lollobrigida.
In 1973 FISEM changed its name to UMEM—Union Mondiale des Écrivains Médécins, or World Union of Physician Writers.[32] Its current president is Dr. Carlos Vieira Reis of Portugal. UMEM is an umbrella organization that subsumes physician-writer groups in:
Belgium, Groupement Belge des Médecins-Écrivains[33]
Brazil, Sociedade Brasileira de Médicos Escritores SOBRAMES[34]
Bulgaria, Club des Écrivains Médecins en Bulgarie[35]
France, Groupement des Ecrivains – Médecins [GEM][36]
Germany, Bundesverband Deutscher Schriftstellerärzte [BDSA][37]
"dedicated to providing a resource for scholars, educators, students, patients, and others who are interested in the work of medical humanities. We define the term 'medical humanities' broadly to include an interdisciplinary field of humanities (literature, philosophy, ethics, history and religion), social science (anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, sociology), and the arts (literature, theater, film, and visual arts) and their application to medical education and practice. The humanities and arts provide insight into the human condition, suffering, personhood, our responsibility to each other, and offer a historical perspective on medical practice. Attention to literature and the arts helps to develop and nurture skills of observation, analysis, empathy, and self-reflection – skills that are essential for humane medical care. The social sciences help us to understand how bioscience and medicine take place within cultural and social contexts and how culture interacts with the individual experience of illness and the way medicine is practiced."[49]
Daniel Bryant, an American internist, has compiled an extensive list of fellow physician writers.[50]
The Johns Hopkins University Press publishes Literature and Medicine, "a journal devoted to exploring interfaces between literary and medical knowledge and understanding. Issues of illness, health, medical science, violence, and the body are examined through literary and cultural texts."[51]
Dartmouth Medical School publishes Lifelines, an art and literature journal dedicated to featuring the works of physicians[52] and their experiences in medicine.
^In: SW Mitchell, Editor, The autobiography of a quack and other stories, The Century Co, New York (1915), pp. 83–109.
^Perović S, Sirovica S (2004). "[Life and work of Dr. Bozo Pericić (1865–1947), genius of our medicine]". Lijec Vjesn. 126 (9–10): 264–70. PMID15918326.
Charach R., The Naked Physician: Poems about the Lives of Patients and Physicians, Kingston, Ontario: Quarry Press; 1990.
Dana CL. Poetry and the Doctors: A Catalogue of Poetical Works Written by Physicians. Woodstock: Elm Tree Press; 1916.
Fischer, L. P. (2004). "Some French doctors as writers in the first half of the XXth century". Histoire des sciences médicales. 38 (1): 65–80. PMID15211994. (Cites more than 50 French medical authors of this period, many novelists or literary critics)
Gordon JD. Doctors as Men of Letters: English and American Writers of Medical Background. New York: The New York Public Library; 1964.
Green JP (1993). "Physicians practicing other occupations, especially literature". The Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine. 60: 132–55.
Hunter KM. Doctors' Stories: the Narrative Structure of Medical Knowledge. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ (1991).
Jones AH. "Literature and medicine: traditions and innovations." In: B Clarke and W Aycock, editors, The Body and the Text: Comparative Essays in Literature and Medicine, Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock (1990).
Lowbury E. Apollo: An Anthology of Poems by Doctor Poets. London: Keynes Press; 1990.
McDonough ML. Poet-Physicians: An Anthology of Medical Poetry Written by Physicians. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas; 1945.
Monro TK. The Physician as Man of Letters, Science and Action. Edinburgh: E. & S. Livingstone Limited, 1951.
Morrell RC. "Physician-writers: Chekhov, Keats, and Maugham," Pharos 59 (1986), pp. 26–30.
Mukand J, editor. Articulations: the Body and Illness in Poetry, University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, IA (1994).
Paige NM, Alloggiamento T., Vital Signs: The UCLA Collection of Physicians' Poetry. Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, 1990.
Peschel ER. Medicine and Literature. New York: Neale Watson Academic Publications, Inc., 1980.
Rousseau JS. "Literature and medicine: the state of the field," Isis 72 (1981), pp. 406–424.
Smithers DW. This Idle Trade: On Doctors Who Were Writers. Tunbridge Wells, United Kingdom: Dragonfly Press, 1989.
Trautmann J, Pollard C. Literature and Medicine: An Annotated Bibliography. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982.
Further reading
Harold L. Klawans, Chekhov's Lie, 1997, ISBN1-888799-12-9. Neurologist and pharmacologist Harold L. Klawans addresses the challenges of combining medical practice with writing.
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