When Dr. Melvyn Schreiber offers advice, I listen. Melvyn, 92, is a professor of radiology who also writes essays. For years, I published some of them in a daily newspaper. He wrote others for medical journals.
One of my favorites is “Letter to a New Resident.” It’s addressed to “Dear Junior Colleague” and is signed “Grizzled Veteran.” Melvyn is a serious scientist with a quiet but irrepressible sense of humor.
Much of Melvyn’s advice about what makes a good radiologist applies beyond the field of medicine.
One of his favorite themes is that an expert must be a person before being an expert.
That means taking time for family and friends. It means taking time to read books outside your specialty.
Melvyn always finds time to audit college courses — literature and history, especially. He is suspicious of anyone who can’t hold a conversation outside a single area of expertise.
The bit of advice that I’ve found most useful was this: “Discipline yourself to read daily about disease processes that you encountered recently.” He was telling radiology residents that if they’d seen anything interesting in the day’s batch of X-rays and scans, they should head to the library and check the latest literature.
I’m no doctor. But if I notice an unfamiliar plant on my morning walk, I hear his voice: “Discipline yourself to read daily.”
I make a note and look it up.
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