Case Studieson Creativity

Text

http://saligiastock.deviantart.com/art/mask-26992991

Michael Augustine Ko

“When you find a cure for cancer...”

Michael Sanatani

founded a music and oncology program

Karen Chien

doctor/classical guitarist

Jennifer Wong

piano separate but equal

William Carlos Williams

Medicine allowed him "to write what he chose, free from any kind of financial or political pressure....[H]e understood the tradeoffs: he would have less time to write; he would need more physical stamina than people with only one occupation.... [He] was willing to live the kind of rushed existence that would be necessary, crowding two full lifetimes into one...." -Biography on Poetry Foundation

Jeanne Ray

You get more respect as a writer, but people tend to reach out to you as a

nurse.

Both of my professions are enormously fulfilling. Writing reaches a greater number of people, but I still go

back to work one day a week as a nurse. I like the one on one of nursing, the commitment to the individual. I

also like the celebrity of writing, the fact that I have the opportunity to perform before an audience. (Interview

on Absolute Write in 2007)

Kathy Reichs

still consults in forensic anthopology

Elizabeth Berg

Before I became a writer, I was a registered nurse for ten years, and that was my “school” for writing—taking care of patients taught me a lot about human nature, about hope and fear and love and loss and regret and triumph and especially about relationships--all things that I tend to focus on in my work. I worked as a waitress, which is also good training for a writer, and I sang in a rock band which was not good for anything except the money I made.

CJ Lyons

“After I’d quit my medical practice [17 years experience as an ER

doctor, crisis counselor, victims advocate, and MedEvac flight

physician] and moved 1,000 miles away from home to pursue my

dream of being a full-time writer, my first novel, my dream debut,

was cancelled by the publisher.”