Alumni in Print
Dr. Joseph, a psychiatrist and chair of the VP&S Alumni Association’s Women in Medicine Collaborative, draws on original research, clinical case studies, and her own experiences to shed light on a lesser-known form of depression that hides behind productivity and success. In her first book, Dr. Joseph helps readers recognize the subtle signs of high-functioning depression (HFD), such as persistent fatigue, anhedonia (the inability to feel pleasure), guilt, and difficulty concentrating. “People with high-functioning depression will have the symptoms of depression, but they’re not low-functioning. In fact, they cope by overfunctioning, and they don’t acknowledge having significant distress,” she told the LA Times. The book, which is based on the first peer-reviewed study on HFD, offers five practical tools to foster more joy and wellbeing. By following her five V’s—validation, venting, values, vision, and vitals—readers can wake up happier, find more satisfaction in their relationships, and feel better in the present while looking forward to the future. Accessible and empathetic, “High Functioning” has appeared on the USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists.
This anthology, edited by Dr. Seo, associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in collaboration with Jason Liebowitz, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology at VP&S, and Marcy Bolster, MD (Harvard Medical School), brings together 25 essays from leading clinicians around the world. Contributors reflect on themes such as clinical reasoning, ingenuity, mentorship, humility, empathy, and the art of saying goodbye. According to the publisher, the volume serves as an ideal primer for students exploring the foundations of clinical medicine and the process of becoming a thoughtful, skilled physician. Highlights include a chapter on deep listening to patients by Rita Charon, MD, PhD, founder of Columbia’s Program in Narrative Medicine at VP&S. (See “How to Treat a Patient Like a Work of Art” on page 30.) The collection offers a broad yet contemplative perspective on what it means to practice medicine with both expertise and humanity.
Dr. Basner, an emeritus professor of medicine at VP&S and internationally recognized pulmonologist, has turned to poetry in his debut collection, which brings together elegiac poems that confront mortality, illness, and the limits of healing. His medical career has included pioneering research on sleep, breathing, and ALS. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in music composition and conducting from the City College of New York, a background that shapes the rhythm of his verse. “This is an adventurous first book of poems by a senior physician who has encountered a wide variety of memorial events,” writes Michael Salcman, MD, retired neurosurgeon and art critic. Themes range from the Holocaust and its enduring grief to the intimate losses of friends, patients, and colleagues. While Dr. Basner writes as a physician, these are not clinical poems; rather, they emerge from a lifetime spent close to suffering and death. His work is also grounded in Jewish cultural memory, recalling his upbringing in the Catskills and honoring the art and music of victims of the Shoah. “My poetry is the plaint and burden of the Jewish physician-clinician, educator, researcher, and author—particularly privileged and devastated by devastating illness of cardiorespiratory failure, and the unimaginable suffering of those with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,” he told the literary organization Yetzirah.
Send books published within the past two years to: vpsalumni@columbia.edu