Category: Iowa

There’s a reason for why I so often tell Dad jokes. In keeping with my post from yesterday about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s biographies:

I glued myself to my autobiography. You may not believe it, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

We’ve ordered a couple of biographies about Dr. King. One of them is his autobiography and the other is Jonathan Eig’s book, “King: A Life.”

I’m getting to be too old to write my own autobiography—guess it’ll have to be done by autopen. Sorry about that one (no I’m not).

I’m a psychiatrist so I know when I’m using humor as a defense mechanism. A lot of good that does.

I’ve never seriously considered writing my autobiography. I could have it tattooed on my back—it would be my backstory.

Seriously—no, I guess that’s impossible. On the other hand, every year about MLK Day, I think about the blog I wrote that the Iowa City Press Citizen published in 2015 on January 19th. It’s becoming almost something like a tradition. I think I need to repost it annually around this time. The title is “Remembering our calling: MLK Day 2015.” 

“Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

That quote is interesting because Jonathan Eig’s biography of MLK can be said to reveal more of the staircase, so to speak, at least from the standpoint of his flaws as well as his strengths. But I stray from the tradition:

As the 2015 Martin Luther King Jr. Day approached, I wondered: What’s the best way for the average person to contribute to lifting this nation to a higher destiny? What’s my role and how do I respond to that call?

I find myself reflecting more about my role as a teacher to our residents and medical students. I wonder every day how I can improve as a role model and, at the same time, let trainees practice both what I preach and listen to their own inner calling. After all, they are the next generation of doctors.

But for now, they are under my tutelage. What do I hope for them?

I hope medicine doesn’t destroy itself with empty and dishonest calls for “competence” and “quality,” when excellence is called for.

I hope that when they are on call, they’ll mindfully acknowledge their fatigue and frustration…and sit down when they go and listen to the patient.

I hope they listen inwardly as well, and learn to know the difference between a call for action, and a cautionary whisper to wait and see.

I hope they won’t be paralyzed by doubt when their patients are not able to speak for themselves, and that they’ll call the families who have a stake in whatever doctors do for their loved ones.

And most of all I hope leaders in medicine and psychiatry remember that we chose medicine because we thought it was a calling. Let’s try to keep it that way.

You know, I’m on call at the hospital today and I tried to give my trainees the day off. They came in anyway.

I used to joke that they would erect a playdoh statue of me in the Quad (Quadrangle Hall was there) on the University of Iowa campus someday. Unfortunately, the Quad was demolished in 2016, so I guess I can’t put that in my autobiography.

Since I retired in 2020, I keep meaning to write my memoirs, but I never get around to it. I guess that makes it my oughta biography.