Jonathan, Eric and I were never meant to be scientists

Video URL

You must be registered to use this feature. Sign in or register.

My failure as a 'real' scientist

RELATED STORIES

Jonathan, Eric and I were never meant to be scientists

Oliver Sacks Scientist

	Views	Duration
81. Influences?	479	00:56
82. The length of my depression	1269	00:35
83. The missing parts of Uncle Tungsten	482	00:27
84. What I regret about Oxford	716	00:33
85. An embarrassment to UCLA	664	02:11
86. Competitive weightlifting	1032	00:29
87. My strength saves a patient from death	1282	01:42
88. Jonathan, Eric and I were never meant to be scientists	490	00:29
89. My failure as a 'real' scientist	539	00:48
90. My missing book on myoclonus	410	02:04

Comments (0) Please sign in or register to add comments

Well, when I first came to New York I... Eric, Jonathan and I of all the various times had fantasies of being a real scientist. It has gone wrong with... with all of us. I have a lovely letter from Jonathan somewhere in which he said that really this was only a literary notion, a romantic notion of a scientist, that none of us were really equipped to be a scientist, at least a bench scientist.

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: Jonathan, Eric and I were never meant to be scientists

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: Jonathan Miller, Eric Korn

Duration: 29 seconds

Date story recorded: September 2011

Date story went live: 02 October 2012