Dr. Laura Kolbe, a hospitalist at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, will give a talk, My Life as a Physician Writer. 

Dr. Kolbe studied English and American literature at Harvard and at Jesus College, University of Cambridge, before studying medicine at the University of Virginia and completing her medical residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Dr. Kolbe's poetry collection, Little Pharma, recently won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, and her poems, essays and book reviews have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, American Poetry Review, The Wall Street Journal and The Journal of General Internal Medicine. Her work frequently inhabits the intersection of medical practice, memoir, and the lyric.

Dr. Kolbe will talk about why she writes, when she writes, how writing helps her as a physician, the impact of Covid on her writing, and many other aspects of her life as a physician writer. She will also do a short reading and answer audience questions. The presentation will culminate with a prompt and reflective writing exercise. 

Her visit is sponsored by the Narrative Medicine Program in conjunction with the Temple Emergency Action Corps (TEAC) and the Temple Medicine Reading and Humanities Group. Everyone is welcome to attend. A Zoom link is below. The event will run from noon to 1:30, with the last half hour devoted to the writing workshop. Busy students and physicians should feel comfortable coming for all or any part of her talk.