WH Auden's poems about doctors

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WH Auden as my mentor

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WH Auden's poems about doctors

Oliver Sacks Scientist

		Views	Duration
91. My unpublished travel writing		353	01:11
92. Talking to Myself		479	00:12
93. Too shy to approach WH Auden		553	00:52
94. WH Auden's poems about doctors		548	00:58
95. WH Auden as my mentor		544	02:08
96. WH Auden's father		398	00:39
97. Regret over WH Auden's last days		485	00:27
98. Tea at WH Auden's: 'After work but before the drinking'	1	682	01:53
99. Writing a posthumous tribute to WH Auden		388	01:05
100. A recollection of Talking to Myself by WH Auden		576	00:53

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In his book, Epistle to a Godson, there are four poems dedicated to doctors and I think he had a special relationship to doctors. His own father, George Auden, had been a very eminent physician in England and was also one of the first describers of the encephalitis lethargica, so his father would have been fascinated by seeing ‘his’ patients, as it were, in my hands 30 years later. Auden himself, Wystan, once came along to Beth Abraham [Hospital] and I... I’ve never been sure – he has a poem called Old People’s Home – and I’ve never been sure whether this was some other place or partly to do with... with Beth Abraham.

Oliver Sacks (1933-2015) was born in England. Having obtained his medical degree at Oxford University, he moved to the USA. There he worked as a consultant neurologist at Beth Abraham Hospital where in 1966, he encountered a group of survivors of the global sleepy sickness of 1916-1927. Sacks treated these patients with the then-experimental drug L-Dopa producing astounding results which he described in his book Awakenings. Further cases of neurological disorders were described by Sacks with exceptional sympathy in another major book entitled The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat which became an instant best seller on its publication in 1985. His other books drew on his rich experiences as a neurologist gleaned over almost five decades of professional practice. Sacks's work was recognized by prestigious institutions which awarded him numerous honours and prizes. These included the Lewis Thomas Prize given by Rockefeller University, which recognizes the scientist as poet. He was an honorary fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and held honorary degrees from many universities, including Oxford, the Karolinska Institute, Georgetown, Bard, Gallaudet, Tufts, and the Catholic University of Peru.

Title: WH Auden's poems about doctors

Listeners: Kate Edgar

Kate Edgar, previously Managing Editor at the Summit Books division of Simon and Schuster, began working with Oliver Sacks in 1983. She has served as editor and researcher on all of his books, and has been closely involved with various films and adaptations based on his work. As friend, assistant, and collaborator, she has accompanied Dr Sacks on many adventures around the world, clinical and otherwise.

Tags: Epistle to a Godson, Old People's Home, Beth Abraham Hospital, WH Auden, George Auden

Duration: 58 seconds

Date story recorded: September 2011

Date story went live: 02 October 2012