Why do men and women become doctors? Out of love for their fellow
humans? For the fascination of medical science? To turn a respectable
fast buck? Most doctors are hard put to diagnose their own professional
motives. In a collection of essays and excerpts, Dr. Noah D. Fabricant,
himself a noted Chicago ear, nose and throat specialist, lets 50 of the
world's best-known doctors and ex-doctors explain Why We Became Doctors
. The medical men who are most articulate
about their choice generally have achieved equal or greater fame as
writers. Among the contributions:W. SOMERSET MAUGHAMSometime London medical student who wrote his experiences into his semi
-autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage :THE medical profession did not interest me … but it gave me a chance
of living in London and so gaining the experience of life that I
hankered after … I saw how men died. I saw how they bore pain … I
saw the dark lines that despair drew on a face … I do not know a
better training for a writer than to spend some years in the medical
profession …”HAVELOCKELLISPioneer student of human sexuality:FIRST profession I ever thought of entering [at 15] was … the Church.
[Later] I wanted to be a doctor [only] because I needed a doctor's
education . . . Otherwise I could never have gained a confident grasp
of the problem of sex … I should have dropped and left no mark …”ALBERT SCHWEITZERWinner of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, who dropped a career in theology
to become a medical missionary in French Equatorial Africa:IT struck me as incomprehensible that I should be allowed to lead such a
happy life when I saw so many people around me wrestling with care . . .
I wanted to be a doctor that I might be able to work without having to
talk . . . This new form of activity I could not represent as talking
about the religion of love, but only as putting it into practice . . .”OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Doctor and author : 1KNOW I might have made an indifferent lawyer—and I
think I may make a tolerable physician—I did not like the one, and I
do like the other … If you would wax thin and savage, like a
half-starved spider—be a lawyer; if you would go off like an opium
eater in love with your starry delusions—be a doctor.” A. J.
CRONINScottish-born London doctor turned bestselling novelist, who caustically
described the medical profession :I'VE always had this queer urge to be a writer [but] I had to do
something sensible . . . That's why I went in for medicine. It was safe
and practical.”SIR WILFRED T.GRENFELLBritish medical missionary:I . . . discussed the matter with our country family doctor. [When] he
produced a pickled human brain, I was thrilled … It attracted me as
did the gramophone, the camera, the automobile.”
