Tips on writing your medical autobiography

Dr Charles Dupont offers some helpful hints that you should bear in mind, if you are considering recording your memoirs for posterity.
When a reporter once asked Noel Coward, ‘Is it true that you drink champagne for breakfast?’, he replied, ‘Doesn’t everybody?’

If somebody enquires as to whether you intend to write your life story – answer similarly. So, just how should you meet this challenge?
h4. The title
It is crucial, of course, to have an eye-catching title. In my own case, as a consultant dermatologist, I would select something like Warts and All or Skins and Sins – with the latter reflecting the past symbiosis between dermatology and venereology.
A chronological sequence is needed.
Your school days can be glossed over, unless there was some outstanding academic or sporting prowess.
h4. Early professional struggles
Describe your struggles against nepotism and prejudice on your pathway to success! This can be combined conveniently with mentors who inspired you and recognised your inherent genius.
This is your opportunity to express your undying thankfulness to them, while remembering the old French proverb, ‘Gratitude is the hope of further favours’.
h4. Achievements
These should be delineated subtly, bearing in mind the advice of that great medical writer Richard Asher to ‘hide your light under a transparent bushel’. You can, however, overdo the modesty bit and thus risk being branded as somebody with much to be modest about.
h4. Photographs
The addition of photographs can certainly relieve the tedium of plain text and they will inevitably add greatly to the price of your book, particularly if they are in colour.
A few fairly recent flattering ones may be included, but having botox beforehand is an over-reaction.
h4. Sex
This undoubtedly sells, but it is probably unsuitable for your medical autobiography. Your irresistibility, however, can be hinted at.
h4. Timing
This also can be difficult, but ensuring that your book appears just before Christmas is generally a good idea. If a storm is brewing in your own particular specialty, this may also be helpful.
h4. Length of epistle
No publisher will accept a manuscript of 10 A4 pages and an attempt to pad this out to 200 pages will inevitably lead to rejection.
h4. Legal advice
Vitriolic comments should be minimised in our litigious society. The publisher would inevitably get risky comments weeded out.
h4. Advertising
With the Medical Council hovering in the background, do not give the impression that you have unique skills.
h4. Acknowledgments
To acknowledge every single person who has even been vaguely involved in the whole process is very tiresome. This is, in fact, reminiscent of modern films, where at least 200 people are mentioned in the credits.
h4. Television and film possibilities
The great medical writer Archibald Joseph, or AJ, Cronin was a Scottish writer who wrote the million-selling novel The Citadel in 1937 (which was a thinly disguised autobiography) and the authentic version of his life, Adventures in Two Worlds, in 1952.
The former was made into a very successful film in 1938 and the latter was adapted into ‘Dr Finlay’s Casebook’, which was a very popular television series.
It is unlikely, however, that you will possess such talent.
h4. Sales
This is the most important consideration of all – who is likely to buy the book? A few sympathetic colleagues will never be enough, and it must have a general medical appeal and, if possible, one for the lay reader.
From the above comments, it is easy to deduce that a mammoth task could be on hand when attempting to write one’s medical autobiography – one which I personally would never attempt.
To me, it seems, it just goes to prove the old adage, that ‘the onlooker sees most of the game’.
* Dr Charles Dupont is a Consultant Dermatologist.