Taking Doctors’ Histories
“In these profiles of some of America’s most notable, influential, and fascinating MDs, Peter Wortsman merges social history, theory of the professions, and an intimate local cultural anthropology of Columbia University’s medical center.”
~ Rita Charon, MD, PhD, Professor and Chair of Medical Humanities and Ethics and Executive Director of Columbia Narrative Medicine
Tomorrow is commencement day for Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. To inspire this year’s graduates, this week we’ll be featuring excerpts of profiles from The Caring Heirs of Doctor Samuel Bard: Profiles of Selected Distinguished Graduates of Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. In this book, Peter Wortsman offers a selection of profiles of Columbia-educated doctors who have made a fundamental difference in the lives of others. The physicians profiled in this book represent the complete spectrum of MDs. Below is a note from Wortsman about the art of interviewing these renown professionals and an excerpt from the preface to the book.
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The profiles that comprise The Caring Heirs of Doctor Samuel Bard were based on interviews I was privileged to conduct over the last three decades, as a writer for the journal Columbia Medicine, with some of America’s most influential and fascinating MDs in clinical practice, academia, publishing, business, international health and many other fields, women and men who have helped us live happier and healthier lives and taught us something vital about ourselves. While each encounter was a unique interchange with an original thinker, a few stand out as much on account of the personality of the subject as due to the locale and circumstances surrounding the interview.
Check the blog this week to read the following profiles:
Save 30% on your copy of the book with coupon code CUP30 at checkout.