"Why don't you go to medical school?" my primary physician said to me with a straight face.
I thought she was making fun of me. We're turning into a family of weird diseases and syndromes, and I, with my love of all things research, have found most of them.
Then I saw she was completely serious.
Because of my own health issues, I don't feel I have the stamina for medical school. Furthermore, I've done some medical advocating in the past, and that's where my heart is (should I ever wish to forsake writing or add another role to my already crazy lifestyle).
I've toyed with the idea of chronicling some of our medical adventures since it's the stuff that makes good fiction. For tonight, I think it's enough to say that both skills--feature and fiction writing and medical advocating--contain similiar methodologies.
These are openminded listening, a detailed chronicling of the history, and empathy for people and characters. Of course, if I had my druthers, I'd skip the diseases and the syndromes and simply focus on the people stuff.
But since I can't, I'll toss a few of our family faves out there. And yes, I found them all, and no, I'm not taking a bow.
* pheochromocytoma
* idiopathic urticaria
* polycythemia
* postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome or POTS (hyperadrenergic subtype)
I thought she was making fun of me. We're turning into a family of weird diseases and syndromes, and I, with my love of all things research, have found most of them.
Then I saw she was completely serious.
Because of my own health issues, I don't feel I have the stamina for medical school. Furthermore, I've done some medical advocating in the past, and that's where my heart is (should I ever wish to forsake writing or add another role to my already crazy lifestyle).
I've toyed with the idea of chronicling some of our medical adventures since it's the stuff that makes good fiction. For tonight, I think it's enough to say that both skills--feature and fiction writing and medical advocating--contain similiar methodologies.
These are openminded listening, a detailed chronicling of the history, and empathy for people and characters. Of course, if I had my druthers, I'd skip the diseases and the syndromes and simply focus on the people stuff.
But since I can't, I'll toss a few of our family faves out there. And yes, I found them all, and no, I'm not taking a bow.
* pheochromocytoma
* idiopathic urticaria
* polycythemia
* postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome or POTS (hyperadrenergic subtype)
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