Writing is very much an emotional process; it requires you to be

When Tess Gerritsen said, “Writing is very much an emotional process; it requires you to be very in touch with your feelings. That is the opposite of what you're taught as a medical doctor. We're supposed to be detached and logical. Maybe because I started off as a writer and then became a doctor, I'm able to integrate those two,” she spoke of the eternal struggle between heart and mind, between the call of empathy and the discipline of reason. Her words are not only about two professions — writing and medicine — but about the two great forces that shape all human creation: emotion and intellect. She reminds us that to truly serve humanity — whether through art, healing, or any noble craft — one must not abandon feeling for logic, nor logic for feeling, but must weave them together like threads of the same divine fabric.

For Gerritsen, who lived as both healer and storyteller, the act of writing was a return to the soul’s natural rhythm — to the pulse of emotion that drives compassion, sorrow, joy, and imagination. In writing, she could feel deeply, explore the landscapes of human suffering and love without restraint. Yet, in medicine, she was trained to restrain — to steady her hands and silence her heart so she could act with clarity in the face of pain and death. Her words reveal the profound truth that the human spirit was never meant to be divided; that even the most logical work requires emotional wisdom, and even the most emotional art requires discipline. This is the essence of her insight — that mastery comes not from suppressing one side of our nature, but from integrating both.

The origin of this wisdom lies in Gerritsen’s own journey. Before she became a physician, she studied anthropology and wrote stories about the human condition. Later, as a doctor, she witnessed life’s rawest truths — the fragility of the body, the finality of death, the quiet strength of those who endure. These experiences deepened her writing, giving her characters and tales the authentic pulse of life. In her novels, particularly in her renowned Rizzoli & Isles series, one can feel this delicate balance: the precise observation of a clinician combined with the tender understanding of a poet. Her art did not abandon science; it transformed it. In melding these worlds, Gerritsen discovered a timeless truth — that knowledge without empathy is cold, but empathy without knowledge is blind.

The ancients understood this harmony. In the temples of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, physicians were also philosophers, artists, and priests. They studied anatomy, but they also studied dreams. They treated not only the body, but the spirit. The healer who could not feel was considered incomplete, for how can one mend what one does not understand? Likewise, the poet who lacked discipline could lose truth in passion. Gerritsen’s reflection resurrects this ancient ideal of the whole healer, the one who feels deeply but acts wisely, who listens not only with the ear but with the heart. Her journey — from words to wounds, from stories to surgeries — is a living echo of that sacred balance.

History, too, bears witness to this union of emotion and intellect. Consider Anton Chekhov, the Russian playwright and physician. Like Gerritsen, he walked the line between medicine and literature, between observation and empathy. His patients gave him stories; his stories gave his patients humanity. He once wrote, “The role of the artist is to ask questions, not to answer them.” So too is the role of the doctor — to seek, to wonder, to heal where one can, and to comfort where one cannot. Chekhov’s medicine made him a better writer; his writing made him a more compassionate doctor. Gerritsen’s words carry that same ancient flame — the belief that to truly know humanity, one must both think and feel.

In her reflection, there is also a deeper call to all who walk paths that demand composure and intellect: do not let the world strip you of your feeling. For logic may save a life, but emotion sustains it. The detached physician may heal the body, but the compassionate one heals the soul. The same holds true for teachers, judges, soldiers, and scientists — those who must hold steady under pressure but must never forget the human faces their work touches. Gerritsen’s wisdom teaches that to be effective is good, but to be humane is divine. The ancients would have said that the wise person carries two torches — one of reason to see clearly, and one of empathy to warm the darkness.

Thus, the lesson of Tess Gerritsen’s words is this: balance is the highest form of mastery. Do not live entirely in thought, nor entirely in feeling. Let your mind guide your heart, and let your heart humanize your mind. The writer who learns discipline crafts meaning that endures; the doctor who learns empathy practices medicine that heals beyond the flesh. Every person, in whatever calling, must learn this integration, for it is the path to wisdom, compassion, and truth.

And so, let her words be carried forward like a lamp for all who seek purpose: embrace both the precision of knowledge and the depth of emotion. Be neither cold nor chaotic, but whole. For the greatest art, the greatest healing, and the greatest lives are born not from one part of the soul, but from the union of its halves — the heart that feels and the mind that understands. Only through that sacred harmony can one touch both the mystery of creation and the essence of humanity.