Dr Charles is back in The Examining Room

Great news hit my e-mail box overnight: one of the premier literary physician-bloggers of my childhood days in the blogosphere has returned.

Hi all, I missed you. I missed blogging.

Just wanted to let you know that I'm returning to writing at http://theexaminingroom.com
I hope you'll stop by, and I look forward to catching up with you all!

Dr. Charles
back from 2007 retirement

This is VERY good news for all of us, especially if you never had the pleasure of reading The Good Doctor before.

I cannot write with his clarity, of course. But I can say that Dr. Charles has a tremendous gift for communicating the depth of the emotional experience of the physician in a way that 1) restores/enhances one's faith in the idealism of medicine, 2) makes you wish Dr. Charles was your personal physician, and 3) gives voice to the suffering and triumphs of the human condition.

From his "Opening Shop" post:

I found that in writing about medicine, I was a better doctor for it. The poetry of people's lives, their loves, ills, and struggles was more easily perceived and appreciated. In writing about the ever-improving body of medical knowledge, I stayed better informed. In writing about my life in medicine, I sustained my energies in a healing art that has existed for as long as people have felt pain and tried to help one another with it. The reflective moment, embodied in the art, analysis, and literature we create, brings light to our present endeavors.

Several of my medblogger colleagues, many here at ScienceBlogs, do this exceedingly well when it is their focus (examples in links: (PalMD, Orac, Dr Signout). But for Dr Charles, it is a vocation.

Dr Charles actually did a short stint here at ScienceBlogs himself before closing shop. He is also the author of the 2005 book Legends of the Examining Room and was also kind enough in Fall 2006 to share with some of us trinities: writings in three, experiences of two, reflections of one.

While he is still adding to some of the back end of his pages, I certainly hope he will tell all of us where to find these books again. Dr Charles is also peppering his site with beautiful images from the NIH/National Library of Medicine online exhibition, Dream Anatomy, something I am sure will please readers and writers like Professor Tom Levenson.

Welcome back, Doctor. I'm feeling better already.

(P.S. - Doc, I am honored to be on your list of the first dozen med bloggers, especially since I am not a physician)