Dr. Wayne F. Larrabee, Jr. – Artist And Humanitarian

How does he keep up with his busy schedule of teaching, writing, practicing, and medical trips with four young children at home? The answer to that is that my wife is a saint, he said.

Words and Images

Among Dr. Larrabee’s many interests is a devotion to the arts, and he is a multitalented artist himself. His poetry, which he began writing in high school, has been published in poetry reviews as well as medical publications, including JAMA and The Lancet.

A long tradition of doctor-writers and poets inspires him. Modern poets who have influenced him include Pablo Neruda, Vicente Aleixandre, Charles Simic, W.S. Merwin, Mary Oliver, and Elisabeth Bishop; his favorite physician writers are Anton Chekhov and William Carlos Williams.

William Carlos Williams wrote deceptively simple poems, frequently scrawled on his prescription pads as he hurried through a busy practice in Rutherford, New Jersey, said Dr. Larrabee. Although much imitated, he remains unique in the 20th century.

One of Williams’s students was a neighbor and friend of the Larrabees in Seattle. Denise Levertov was a magnificent poet in her own right and she became my teacher, said Dr. Larrabee. On Sundays, over tea, she would read and critique my latest work.

Once, when he was struggling with a poem, she advised him: Don’t work so hard. If you try to force the poem, it will never be the poem it was meant to be. Just look at it from the corner of your eye, and let it be born naturally.

This reminds him of the advice that Dr. Akio Kitahama, one of his surgical mentors at Charity Hospital, gave him in regard to surgical dissection. Dr. Kitahama said: ‘If it’s hard, it’s wrong’, said Dr. Larrabee. Although that’s not always true, skillful surgical dissections usually do look and feel ‘easy.’ And good poems, like good surgery, require skillful craft.

To His Colleagues

Dr. Larrabee feels hopeful about the state of medicine in general and the offerings of otolaryngology in particular.

There is a lot of gloom and doom about medicine-the issues, the complexity of modern practice, the paperwork that we deal with daily in academic and private practice alike, said Dr. Larrabee. But at end of the day, we are so blessed. For such a small specialty, otolaryngology is a wonderful field: It is creative and it is challenging. This is a specialty that can give us great personal satisfaction.

References

1. Southgate MT. Medicine and art. MedGenMed 2007;9(3):43. (Accessed June 2, 2009, at www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2100120 )
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2. www.smilechina.com .
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©2009 The Triological Society