At SoMeDocs (“Doctors on Social Media”), we celebrate the individual doctor from within the large healthcare system of today. We’re growing a community of bright, talented, and entrepreneurially-motivated community that wants to make more impact and connect more quickly with the world.
Mark Vonnegut, MD, the son of Kurt and Jane Cox Vonnegut, was born in Chicago in 1947 and moved to Cape Cod when he was four years old. He attended Northfield Mount Hermon and received a B.A. in Religion from Swarthmore in 1969. After graduation, he started a commune in British Columbia; he had his first psychotic break shortly thereafter. Mark was originally diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia but was subsequently diagnosed as Manic Depressive; the medically preferred term is now Bipolar. He spent several years back on the Cape recovering and working odd jobs, and he eventually completed a first memoir. The Eden Express was published in 1975 and has remained in print ever since. It was named an ALA Notable Book, and the New York Times declared it “required reading for those who want to understand insanity from the inside.”
In 1974, Mark decided to follow his true calling and go to medical school. He spent two years completing the prerequisite coursework at The University of Massachusetts, Boston, and ultimately earned his medical degree from Harvard.
Vonnegut finished his pediatrics residency at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in 1982 and has been a primary care pediatrician ever since. He spent 19 years with Milton Pediatrics in Milton, MA, eventually becoming a partner. In 2001, Mark opened his own pediatric practice in Quincy, MA. His staff privileges include Children’s Hospital, MGH, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and South Shore Hospital. Mark has served on the Harvard Medical School Admissions Committee and is currently an instructor in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. He has spoken at numerous conferences and has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Boston Globe, among others, on topics ranging from ADHD to mental illness. Vonnegut’s second memoir Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So was published by Delacorte Press on October 5, 2010. The Heart of Caring: A life in pediatrics will be published by Seven Stories Press in the fall of 2021.
Mark Vonnegut is married to Barbara Sibert Vonnegut. He has three sons, Zachary, 43, Eli, 40, and Mark Oliver, 18. He paints, plays the saxophone, and likes to walk his dog.
A lot of magic – time, energy, effort – goes on behind the scenes in order to create a project of this nature. Here are the humans behind this project. Contact SoMeDocs anytime to infuse magic into your own work.
Shem (our host’s title of preference) is a novelist, playwright and activist. Education: Harvard, Phi Beta Kappa; Rhodes Scholar at Oxford Ph.D.; Harvard MedicalSchool, M.D. with honors. He is Professor of Medicine in Medical Humanities at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. In 2020 he published his new novel, Man’s 4th Best Hospital, sequel to The House of God, which has sold 3 million copies. More at samshem.com and www.mans4thbesthospital.com.
Dr. Dana Corriel is a board-certified internist who has taken a drastic pivot from seeing patients in the office to more creative entrepreneurial ventures. She founded SoMeDocs in an effort to empower physicians to use the online in order to innovate and therefore fuel positive change in healthcare. Dr. Corriel now regularly consults with individuals and companies, produces series, and markets thought leaders. You can check out a sprinkling of her creations in her self-named online portfolio, drcorriel.com.
More conversations are taking place, with medical literature icon Samuel Shem of “The House of God” fame at their helm. This time, Shem brings the guests, but continues to search for answers on how to put the human back into healthcare.
Good connection is mutual connection.
— Samuel Shem —
"Good connection is mutual connection," Dr. Samuel Shem, author of "The House of God". Watch the 2nd season of his series, exclusively on @SoMeDocs! #SoMeDocs #medtwitter #MEDed
Shem and I linked up in late 2020, in the midst of a pandemic. We were connected through a mutual contact, in that magical way social media has for bringing people together who would not have otherwise met. We instantaneously clicked, unified by the healthcare field we had dabbled in and our love of the arts. Yada, yada, yada, several vent sessions later, we had ourselves a plan. We would join forces on the project, and use each of our talents to spread the word.
That’s how Conversations with Shem was born.
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