Q&A with Carolyn Larkin Taylor

 

 

 

Carolyn Larkin Taylor is the author of the new memoir Whispers of the Mind: A Neurologist's Memoir. She is a neurologist, and she lives in Bellingham, Washington.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Whispers of the Mind?

 

A: I had used the technique of journaling throughout my three-decade career as a tool to process my emotions as I navigated difficult and interesting personal and professional situations.

 

Part of medical training is to learn early on how to compartmentalize your feelings so that you can treat patients effectively and keep going despite a sad outcome. This was particularly necessary as I dealt with my own grief over losing a family member and had to return to my residency duties the day after the funeral.

 

In semi-retirement I had the time to reflect about my career and reading through my journal, I was inspired by the human resilience and courage of my patients as I witnessed my own transformation over the years as both a doctor and human being.

 

I felt the need to share these stories with readers to honor my patients and inspire others.

 

I also hoped to highlight the deeply human side of medicine and neurology in particular. Especially in an era of medical mistrust and social isolation, reading about the human side of medicine can offer comfort, understanding, and sense of belonging.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: I wanted somehow to relate how much information is gained through the doctor-patient relationship that is unsaid. In this fast-paced technological world where doctors, often due to time constraints and administrative requirements, find themselves typing through the initial patient interview, recording all the data, they have little time for eye contact and establishment of that human connection.

 

The relationship with your patient, the compassion you feel for them, is as important in healing as the technology and training you bring to the table.

 

There’s a phenomenon called emotional contagion which is the tendency to unconsciously synchronize with the emotions of others. For instance, a patient may list their chief complaint as insomnia and deny any depressive symptoms, but if you are intuitive, you come away from the encounter feeling depressed yourself, which is really what the patient may be unknowingly feeling.

 

This is particularly important in a field like neurology, which so often deals with the complexity of the interaction between the mind and the body. The brain itself, the most complex of all computers, may be thought of as a conduit or relay station connecting these.

 

Whispers represent the difficulty to hear reflections of what is really wrong or bothering the patient. It is what is not said out loud. It is what an intuitive physician can often hear that the patient may even be unaware of.

 

Those Whispers emanate from the mind, which is a collection of mental processes that include thoughts, feelings, and consciousness rather than the brain, which is the physical organ responsible for physical processes.

 

Q: Over how long a period did you work on the book?

 

A: The most difficult part of writing a book or essay is the thought process and planning before you even get started. I thought about how I would do this and reviewed decades of journaling for the better part of a year.

 

When I finally sat down to put the stories in a literary context, I suddenly felt hurried, as if I may not have that much more time to put it all together. I spent about six months writing the rough draft and another year rewriting and going through the editing process.

 

Q: What impact did it have on you to write the book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?

 

A: Writing the book had a profound impact on me. As I mentioned above, I had used journaling to process my emotions over the years on paper and by doing this, I was avoiding dealing with the feelings at the time.

 

I found myself getting really emotional as I reflected and wrote about some of the stories, especially the deeply personal ones. It took many rewrites and edits before I could read some of the stories again without crying. After all these years, I was surprised at my intense reaction.

 

As for my readers, it’s one thing to know the textbook definition of Parkinson’s disease or stroke, but it’s entirely different to see the bravery of someone living with it every day. These stories help us feel connected, even to someone we’ve never met.

 

I wanted readers to come away from this book not just understanding neurological illness better, but feeling empathy, hope, and a sense of shared humanity. At the end of the day, it’s the personal stories that stay with us, that teach us, and that help us see ourselves in one another.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Now that this is finished, I’m continuing to write essays about medical topics mostly that I care about, such as medical gaslighting, grief, and the doctor-patient relationship.

 

I began my writing journey originally by writing about addiction as a brain disease that is unfairly stigmatized as a personality flaw. I plan to return to this. It is in rough draft form and needs to be rewritten and edited.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: There is something for everyone in the stories contained in this book. Although I tell some powerful stories of neurological disease and the brave patients facing them, the stories are meant to highlight broader universal themes such as death with dignity, grief, forgiveness, medical gaslighting, meaning of life and death, addiction, and balancing a demanding career and family.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb