Literary Grand Rounds

ClinicalCorrelations.org The NYU Internal Medicine Blog • breaking news • diagnostic dilemmas • morning report • mystery quizzes • health care policy • ethics • and much more… Login: http://clinicalcorrelations.org Username: nyu Password: blog Department of Medicine Grand Rounds Case Vignette Kartikya Ahuja, M.D. March 14th, 2007 CC: A 25 year old male presents with pulmonary tuberculosis HPI: • Born in Birmingham Alabama, the patient was age 13 when his father committed suicide by shooting himself with a shotgun in the family house attic. At age 15 his mother died as she drove her car off a country bridge. At that time he was sent to live with extended family. At age 18 he enrolled at the University of North Carolina where he studied chemistry. He moved to New York City to study but experienced recurrent bouts of depression. At age 25 he graduated with honors from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. After graduation he interned in pathology at Bellevue Hospital. • • • • • At age 26 he contracted pulmonary tuberculosis, and was hospitalized for three months on the Bellevue wards, along with three of his other co-interns. For the following three years he was confined to Trudeau sanatorium in Saranac, New York. Therapeutic course • He returned to Columbia University where he began a writing career, delving into literary and philosophical readings during his slow recovery. He took a particular interest in existentialism, with its concern for the alienation of the modern individual. • Confined by his illness, he “began to read no longer McLeod’s Physiology or Gay’s Bacteriology, but the great Russian novelists, especially Dostoevsky; the modern French novelists, especially Camus.” • He wrote for thirty years, producing several published novels. • In 1990 he died of complications of lung cancer. Final Diagnosis • depression • pulmonary tuberculosis • lung cancer “TB liberated me” -Walker Percy • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • The Moviegoer. New York: Knopf, 1961; London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1963. The Last Gentleman. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1966; London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1967. Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1971; London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1971. The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1975. Lancelot. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1977; London: Secker and Warburg, 1977. Going Back to Georgia. Athens: University of Georgia, 1978 [Limited edition; in Signposts, or SS, below]. Questions They Never Asked Me. Northridge, CA: Lord John Press, 1979 [Limited edition; in SS]. The Second Coming. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980; London: Secker and Warburg, 1981. Bourbon. Winston-Salem, NC: Palaemon Press, 1982 [Limited edition; in SS]. Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983. How to Be an American Novelist in Spite of Being Southern and Catholic. Lafayette: University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1984 [Limited edition; in SS]. The City of the Dead. Northridge, CA: Lord John Press, 1985 [Limited edition; in SS]. Diagnosing the Modern Malaise. New Orleans: Faust, 1985 [Limited edition; in SS]. Novel Writing in an Apocalyptic Time. Afterword by Eudora Welty. New Orleans: Faust, 1986 [Limited edition; in SS]. The Thanatos Syndrome. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1987; London: Andre Deutsch, 1987. Signposts in a Strange Land. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,1991.