I have always been torn between pragmatism and creativity. As a child, I looked for concrete achievable goals: good grades, racking up Girl Scout badges, knitting something wearable. But I also lived in a bit of a dream world where I let my imagination run wild. My imagination ran wildest in books. I was a voracious reader and, like many young bookworms, I wanted to write.
From an early age, I was also fascinated by biology, normal and abnormal, especially human biology. In sixth grade, I told my teacher I was going to be a writer and a nurse. She said, “Why not a doctor? Girls can be doctors.” And that was that. At the age of 12, I’d discovered a concrete achievable ambition.
My pragmatic side appreciated the straight-line path from college-premed to medical school to career. As an introvert, I had some qualms about practicing medicine, but thankfully, in medical school I discovered pathology. Lab work. Diagnosing disease by peering through a microscope. This was a field of medicine I had not known existed until exposed to it. I was enthralled. Nothing could have better suited my interests and capabilities. Now I had a busy challenging career (and a growing family), but there was a part of me that still wanted, even needed, to let my mind meander and then put my thoughts on paper.
As I settled into the position of a university-affiliated pediatric and renal pathologist, I found myself returning to a habit of reading for pleasure, for its pure escapism. My husband and my kids were also readers, and the deluge of books in the house reinvigorated my creative alter-ego. The occasional pathology article for medical journals wasn’t cutting it. I returned to writing novels on the sly.
The stars aligned when a lifelong preoccupation with all things medieval brought Eleanor of Aquitaine’s daughters to my attention just as my kids were entering their tween years. I wrote a YA novel, The Queen’s Daughter, that was named a “Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year” in 2011. Then I settled back into my medical career. Almost contented.
Quicker than I ever imagined possible, my kids grew up, went to college, graduated, and moved out. Although I continued writing all along, I wrote mainly for myself. For the creative outlet. Over that period, my interests changed. Historical fiction remains my genre of choice but I moved through time from the Middle Ages to the 19th and early 20th century. I moved through space from Europe to America. And I gravitated from books for kids back to books for adults.
In my early career, I always swore I would never write medical fiction. I didn’t even like reading novels based in medical settings. Novels were my escape from the stresses of daily life. But like many physicians, I gradually became interested in the history of medicine and how this field that I have devoted so much of my life to has evolved. While reading about the development of Johns Hopkins Hospital and Medical School at the turn of the 20th century, a plethora of intriguing people and stories jumped out at me, drawn from those early days of modern experimental medicine. My writing took a turn.
Writing One That Loves and Knows, the love story of Dr. William S. Halsted, a brilliant experimental surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and Caroline Hampton, niece of Confederate General Wade Hampton, allowed me to merge my pragmatic side with my creative side as I strove to make these historical persons live again — on the page.
