Close to the Bone: How this Works
What you can expect.
I actually do know where I’m going with this, and I still promise it won’t be boring.
Subscriptions
You can choose to be a paying or nonpaying subscriber to Close to the Bone, but subscribing is important. On the practical side, subscribing ensures you receive the emails, and paying helps keep me going and this afloat. There’s also an x-factor in subscribing—it’s a declaration as much (or more) for you than for me that you want to pay attention to rare content like this. I don’t write about fitting into the game; I write about being the game. I write about making the game.
I risked everything as a surgeon in order to move closer to truth and freedom from censorship. I will always post free content at least once a month. I will unspool my story along three timelines: from age 9 in 1967 when I first made a pact with a classmate to become doctors when we grew up, from the start of surgery residency at UC Davis in 1992, and from the start of a sabbatical in 2014. The free posts will largely be drawn from the last 10 years; the juicy underpinnings will be mainly for paid subscribers. Only paid subscribers can engage with posts and other conversation (or response) portals I open from time to time.
Safe Harbor
In the past, I worked hard to create safe space via membership for doctors to speak their minds without the fear of retribution that plagues practice today, but it came at the cost of some extra enrolment steps that gave would-be participants pause. I want so much for doctors to be able to say what we think and feel and to safely show up as we are in the presence of one another. This didn’t really work. Now I’m going to reduce barriers to participation by suggesting that you create a user name that expresses something true and personal about you but that also gives your professional identity some shelter. Sometimes (the yucky potential of) anonymity creates a public toilet, and I don’t want that. It’s possible to express a whole range of difficult feelings and ideas without pissing in the well. In fact, the well must include the shadowy material as much as the luminous. The gold nugget is often hidden in shit, but we must hold all this in proper regard.
Why My Story Is Worth Your Time (and Money)
I’m offering my story as a story of healing, a dynamic, vital proposition that is at the core of what it means to be a doctor. It is very difficult to accompany people—patients—in their difficult times and, I now believe, impossible if we are unable to address our own difficulties. Something is always held back or closed off. I do not intend for anyone to follow my path or for it to be a prescription. I offer it as a story that can help embolden your own journey. I believe the power of the sum of true stories is immense and points a way forward.
Down the Road a Piece
Paid subscribers will also get access to other content I add, beginning with books and media I think are worthy of your attention and that might help you along your path and that have been valuable to me. I am imagining this will include some live conversations I host with people whose ideas I believe are important and whom I want you to have a chance to engage with.
