Walker Percy brought to his novels the perspective of both a doctor
and a patient. Trained as a doctor at Columbia University, he
contracted tuberculosis during his internship as a pathologist at
Bellevue Hospital and spent the next three years recovering,
primarily in TB sanitoriums. This collection of essays explores not
only Percy's connections to medicine but also the underappreciated
impact his art has had--and can have--on medicine itself.
The contributors--physicians, philosophers, and literary
critics--examine the relevance of Percy's work to current dilemmas
in medical education and health policy. They reflect upon the role
doctors and patients play in his novels, his family legacy of
depression, how his medical background influenced his writing
style, and his philosophy of psychiatry. They contemplate the
private ways in which Percy's work affected their own lives and
analyze the author's tendency to contrast the medical-scientific
worldview with a more spiritual one. Assessing Percy's stature as
an author and elucidating the many ways that reading and writing
can combine with diagnosing and treating to offer an antidote to
despair, they ask what it means to be a doctor, a writer, and a
seeker of cures and truths--not just for the body but for the
malaise and diseased spirituality of modern times.
This collection will appeal to lovers of literature as well as
medical professionals--indeed, anyone concerned with medical ethics
and the human side of doctoring."
Contributors." Robert Coles, Brock Eide, Carl Elliott, John D.
Lantos, Ross McElwee, Richard Martinez, Martha Montello, David
Schiedermayer, Jay Tolson, Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Laurie
Zoloth-Dorfman
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