Pegasus Physician Writers at Stanford

The Pegasus Physician Writers at Stanford are a group of academic and private practice physicians in various stages of career development who also are creative writers. The group was founded in 2008 by Audrey Shafer, MD (Anesthesia), Hans Steiner, MD (Psychiatry and Human Development), Irvin Yalom, MD (Psychiatry), and Larry Zaroff, MD, PhD (Cardiac Surgery). This independent group closely collaborates with the Medicine & the Muse, an arts and humanities program at the Stanford School of Medicine. Jennifer Pien, MD (Psychiatry) is the current assistant director of the program. She also is the editor-in-chief of the new medical literary journal, The Pegasus Review. The group currently has over 100 members from all branches of medicine participating in monthly meetings, workshops, and annual events. The group has published almost 100 books over the past 10 years. Members write poetry, fiction, fictionalized memoirs, op-ed pieces, and educational texts for the public with the intent to broaden public understanding of the science and art of medicine. Other goals of the group are to bring the insights of humanistic arts to the practice of medicine, to inform creative writing by the practice of medicine, to educate medical students and young physicians in the humanistic dimensions of medical practice, and to celebrate the lives of patients through their writing.

The Pegasus Physician Writers have been featured on a wide variety of social platforms and members have published regularly in medical humanistic journals, such as The Intima, A Journal of Narrative Medicine Ars medica; and medical specialty journals, such as JAMA, and Academic Psychiatry, among many others. The group welcomes new members who are passionate in their pursuit of medicine and creative writing.

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