Spring your ink...
...grow some insight
Renew, Grow, Transform
Hello, doctor! Spring is a time of renewal, growth, and transformation. It's a fitting time for doctors who write to reflect on their own creative journeys and the profound impact their words can have.
Your words are welcome here. Express. Influence. Inspire.
In This Issue
Last Call
Laurels
Interactive Writing Ops
Primer Pumped
Subs Wanted
Getting Acquainted
Write of Passage
Last Call
The Writing & Storytelling in Healthcare virtual conference is coming up on April 6. The deadline for submissions has passed, but you can still join in for great insights from our expert doctors who write. Also, you can take part in the group writing exercise during the conference itself. The registration page is still open!
Laurels
Congratulations to my writing client, Dr. Chuck Joy. His poem “All Expenses Paid” has been accepted by the yawp [sic] lit mag.
“I’m excited to be included in this publication,” Chuck says.
The Poetry Lounge in Pittsburgh will have a release event for the quarterly issue on April 26.
Interactive Writing Ops
Get writing support in a group with other doctors who write or solo with Dr. Maria Simbra. Check out the Iron Writing Circle for Healthcare Professionals and One-on-One Writing Support. April is a great time to dust off your work-in-progress!
Primer Pumped
This month: how writing benefits you. Watch this newsletter channel for more.
Subs Wanted
Calling for Submissions for the forthcoming online mag, DocWriteRx™, featuring doctors who write.
Please write 100 to 500 words on one of these topics…
Your thoughts on the future of medicine
How you balance your personal and professional life
Your pet peeves as a doctor
You may write an essay, a story, poems, or a collection of haikus. These are your words. Have fun and experiment.
Upon publication, the author will receive a free premium subscription of Healing Ink™ for one year, an $80 value. That includes all paywalled material and future bonuses in that year.
Getting Acquainted
It took me seven years, but I earned my masters in public health from the University of Minnesota at age 50. My midlife crisis degree.
Some of it was in person with summer intensives in Minneapolis with my husband and toddler in tow. Most of it was online. I suppose I should have pursued the MPH when I was younger, but the timing never seemed to be quite right.
Why did I do it? After all, I was two careers deep at that point with no ambitions for a third career in public health. The material helped a bit with my TV news reporting, but I would have done just fine even without it.
Ultimately, I recognized it was a degree of homage to a med school attending, Dr. Bruce Dixon. He oversaw my internal medicine acting internship at the VA Hospital my senior year.
He was a brilliant internist and infectious diseases specialist with a photographic memory. Because he was a larger than life character with his signature buzz cut, glasses, white shirt, and black tie, anyone could easily spot Dr. Dixon on the streets of Oakland, Pittsburgh’s academic corridor. He was also the director of the Allegheny County Health Department, positioned prominently on Oakland’s Forbes Avenue.
Through his lessons and through his actions, he taught me there was more to being a doctor than practicing medicine. On rounds, the residents wanted lessons about hypercalcemia and sarcoidosis, but Dr. Dixon spoke of his work at the health department — the cases, his projects, the political struggles. The residents were bored, but I hung on his every word.
Had he not been my attending during that crucial month, I suspect my career path would not have taken the unconventional turns that it did — turns that I’m eternally grateful for.
Dr. Dixon remembered I had been his medical student, even into my 40s when I interviewed him for TV news. He asked me to call him Bruce. I did as he asked, but to me, he was always Dr. Dixon.
He was kind enough to write my recommendation letter for the MPH program. “I’ll do it,” he said, “but I don’t think it’s going to be challenging enough for you.” He had that kind of confidence in me.
While I would never be as grand a figure, a part of me aspired to be as savvy, versatile, and connected as he was.
Before I completed my degree, he died in his early 70s on the operating table from a fulminant gall bladder infection. When I heard the news, I wept.
As the adage goes, we spend our lives trying to impress those who’ve impressed us most. Dr. Bruce Dixon impressed me most.
Write of Passage
“Spring is the time of plans and projects.”
See you next month for the next dose of Healing Ink™.
— Maria Simbra, MD, MA, MPH, Director and Principal of Ironed Words Productions, LLC