Hi, I'm Ellen Pompeo. Welcome to Tell Me.

Welcome back. On today's episode, I'm talking to Michelle Harper. Michelle Harper has worked as

an emergency room physician for more than a decade. At different hospitals, she was chief resident

at Lincoln Hospital in South Bronx, and in the emergency department at the Veterans Affairs

Medical Center in Philly. She's a graduate of Harvard University and the reticent school of medicine

at Stony Brook University, she wrote an incredibly moving memoir about what it means to be a doctor.

I think the experience of being a doctor and what it does to people, whether it breaks them or

shapes them, however it affects their lives, I think it's a fascinating profession.

I find Michelle Harper fascinating. I hope you enjoy this episode of Tell Me.

Hi, Michelle. How are you, gorgeous? How are you? Oh my goodness. So wonderful meeting you. And

actually, we end up kind of matching the colors. Yeah, it's true. We have our our neutrals.

Our neutrals on today. So first, I want to say congratulations on the book. You're an incredible

writer. Oh, thank you. Have you always written? I could say yes in a way only because, you know,

I was one of the kids who in high school or in the middle of the night, I would break out my

journal and write poetry. But beyond that, beyond doing that and just going through school, I didn't.

And I I lost a lot of my writing once I got on the medical track. So when I had this idea to write

the book and then and then finally pursue it, I had to relearn. I had to find my words again.

I thought to myself, okay, I'm going to enroll in a course to do this. But of course, I couldn't

make any of the courses because I was an attending physician working shifts, as you know, because

your friend who's also in healthcare. So I hired an editor teacher. She teaches courses. And I

said, okay, we're going to do my own course. And that's how I'll work on my writing. And then I

said, wait, if I'm writing essays, let me just write my book. And so then I just chapter by chapter

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