Onward: Narratives at the Heart of Medicine

This book is a peek into the minds of those at the forefront of medicine. It elucidates the experiences, thoughts, and feelings at the heart of doctoring. Physicians are regarded as healers willing to sacrifice their time, money, and health to save lives. We expect physicians to be mediators between life and death with unerring accuracy. But how do physicians make these life-changing decisions in the face of uncertainty? How do they feel when they make the wrong call?

This collection of nonfiction and fiction pieces features a diverse set of voices including doctors and physicians-in-training of all ages across many medical specialties, ethnicities, cultures, and perspectives, who are connected through the Pegasus Physician Writers at Stanford. Through them, we learn of the hardship and trauma that bound healthcare workers before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, they tell a complex, raw, multi-perspective tale of life as a doctor today. This anthology comes at a crucial moment as healthcare workers leave in record numbers and systems are stretched to the brink. This anthology stands at the intersection of literature and medicine and is uniquely modern in its diverse range of voices that join in giving readers a view into the hearts and minds of doctors. These are introduced by David Eagleman, an internationally bestselling author and Guggenheim Fellow who runs the podcast Inner Cosmos and is the writer and presenter of The Brain, an Emmy-nominated television series.

The editors hope that this book by physicians will not only inspire conversation among those who are in the medical field, but will also encourage aspiring and practicing clinicians to share their stories, increase the visibility of underrepresented voices in literature and medicine, and crucially, serve to challenge the barrier between doctors and patients--illuminating and deepening the humanity at the heart of medicine.