Book review
Reciting Robert Frost
in the ICU—Essays
on the Literature of
Medicine
Author: Taylor Prewitt, MD
Published by Foxboro Press, Fort Smith, Arkansas, 2012
Reviewed by
M. Saleem Seyal, MD, FACC, FACP
“We dance around in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.”
(“The Secret sits” ---- A Robert Lee Frost’s poem published in “A
Witness Tree”, 1942)
T
he title “Reciting Robert Frost in the ICU” is reminiscent of
Dr. Taylor Prewitt’s permutations in muttering the second
verse of perhaps the shortest poem in history, “But the
Secret sits in the middle and knows,” when confronted in the ICU
with a seriously ill patient who is a diagnostic conundrum. One of
the many interpretations of this beautiful poem in medical context
might well be that while we dance around and spin our wheels in
dealing with difficult clinical situations, the “Secret” can be figured
out by contemplation and looking inwards. He calls the practice
of medicine the “greatest show on earth,” “a three-ring circus”
and “life itself ” and maintains that we as health care professionals
have the privilege of having front row seats. We should take it all
in and not blink our eyes.
While trawling the Amazon website for books about Literature
8
LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
& Medicine, I came across this book with an intriguing title. I
purchased the book after finding out that it was a compilation of
60 book reviews written by a retired cardiologist. That was more
than enough for me and I delved into reading this highly interesting book written by a fellow bibliophile/ book reviewer. Dr. Taylor
Prewitt is a native of Arkansas who received his BA in English
from the University of Arkansas and his MD from Washington
University. He completed his internal medicine residency and
cardiology fellowship in Chapel Hill, N.C and practiced cardiology
at the Cooper Clinic in Fort Smith, Arkansas from 1969 to 2003
with one year of sabbatical (1974) in the cardiology department
at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, England. He is a
voracious reader and an ardent book reviewer, having published
at least ten previous compilations of book reviews, available at
www.lulu.com. Through the marvel of Google Search, I was able
to correspond with Dr. Taylor Prewitt by e-mail and it has been a
delightful exchange. It does appear that our interests in cardiology, medicine and books coincide and we have read many of the
same books. I am currently in the process of reading one of his