The (Sort Of) Cheerful Oncologist

[bironic]

Just discovered The Cheerful Oncologist, a blog by Craig Hildreth, M.D. It's a lyrical, sensitive, wry, at times spiritual window into the professional and personal life of a medical oncologist, along with amused news article reactions and weekly poetry posts (Yeats, Neruda, Shelley, Wilfred Owen...). It's chock full of anecdotes, musings and light analysis, all peppered with delightful similes and metaphors, alliteration, quotes, etc. He writes about medicine and language and life – a little slice of heaven.

I think it's fascinating in and of itself, but it's also a potential resource for Wilson writers. Hildreth includes descriptions of what he says to his patients and what they say to him, what tone he adopts, whether he touches them and where; of what he's thinking as they're speaking, or before, or afterwards; of treatment plans, side effects, rounds, appointments, consults, you name it. You aren't going to find most of that in articles or case studies. He seems to have a deep but restrained sympathy for his patients – a useful reminder that doctors can feel for the people they care for without crumbling or losing their senses of humor. And perhaps above all, there's a lot that's said implicitly, in his tone and the ways in which he approaches his work, that could be helpful in shaping how you depict Wilson in a story or even how you interpret his behavior on the show.

Still dipping my toes in the metaphoric water, but here are links to the posts I've enjoyed most so far:

The other day I had some free time (always risky for a medical oncologist) and sat at my desk, contemplating [the phenomenon] of miracles. A sad, beautiful little think-piece on terminal cancer, life and a quiet epiphany while listening to a patient.

Rule number 18: The seriously ill patient's time is more precious than yours – don't waste it. Description of his interaction with a delicate new ovarian cancer patient, with Marvell and Shakespeare quotes. I think that epitomizes the whole blog.

Classical Rhetoric in Medicine: Epizeuxis. Linguistic geekery in a patient meeting.

P.S. The blog's previous home is blogsome.com. It may go back further than the scienceblogs site.

Anyone else know of good doctor-writer blogs?

ETA: elynittria, if I haven't thanked you enough already, let me say it again, because I'm now able to create and/or add RSS feeds like this one to my friends list.

Comments

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

Yes! I don't visit the Cheerful Oncologist often but I have liked what I've read.

There's also Respectful Insolence, who writes about alternative medicine, quackery and several other topics.

And The Examining Room of Dr. Charles is another wonderful medical-literary blog.

MedPundit is one of the oldest medical blogs, written by a practising family physician. (She'd been on hiatus a few months and is posting again.)

Every Tuesday Grand Rounds is posted: a collection of the best medical blogging for the week. The schedule is at Blogborygmi. Highly recommended reading! Blogborygmi is hosting Grand Rounds this week. Also check out Pediatric Grand Rounds (don't have a link for that though).

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Oh, fantastic, thank you. I will definitely be checking those out. I don't know why it didn't occur to me before to search out this kind of thing -- it's right up my alley.

[roga.livejournal.com]

It's not a blog, but there's a site called Conversations in Care- it's a web-book about doctor-patient communication, and it's cancer-oriented. There's a chapter about non-verbal communication, one about delivering bad news, one about communicating with family members - even one about the physician as patient, if you want to write a Wilson-Gets-Sick fic. But pretty much everything there is relevant.

Then, for a slightly different perspective, there's cancergiggles - a cancer patient's blog who writes frankly and humorously about living with cancer, his hospital stays, treatments, etc. He calls his oncologist the Cancer Wizard and posts like these about their relationship are very interesting to read; the blog is inspiring in general.

Thanks for the Cheerful Oncology link - he really is a good writer.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Neat! They both sound great. Your description of Conversations in Care reminds me: I've been reading an electronic copy of Michael Medved's 1980-something book Hidden Lives Of A Medical Center Staff, which contains profiles of several doctors and a -- resident? fellow? can't remember -- at a major West Coast medical center. Also very interesting stuff, and some passages are strikingly reminiscent of characters on House. I was just saying to topaz_eyes above that it's funny that I've never thought of looking for medical writing blogs before, since I enjoy the genre so much in print (and practice). Thanks again!

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

Fascinating sites!

The Cheerful Oncologist is especially interesting, and you're absolutely right -- he would be an excellent Wilson-resource.

[renoir-girl.livejournal.com]

Outstanding.

Thank you for this rec.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. Isn't it wonderful? I'm looking forward to reading back further and to checking out the other suggestions as well.

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

Let me spam you with another interesting blog I found through Pediatric Grand Rounds (archive site is here):

Blog, MD is a pediatric oncologist's view on things.

I don't know if you follow Polite Dissent? It's a blog by an MD, that dissects (heh) how medicine is portrayed in comics and media. I follow it because it has an assessment of the medicine on House every week. It's an RSS feed BTW.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Hi again. Spam me anytime. :) I'll take a peek at Blog, MD tomorrow and probably the non-House areas of Polite Dissent as well. I've read some of P.D.'s posts while researching for episode-specific fic or just out of curiosity for particular plot points, but haven't poked around the rest of the site. If what you say is true (and I don't doubt that it is), it sounds like another great site to keep tabs on.