Doctors are often stereotyped as “logical” and “analytical” rather than “creative.” That can’t be said about Dr. Amit Majmudar, a diagnostic nuclear radiologist with Mount Carmel Health who lives and practices in central Ohio.
In 2015, Majmudar became Ohio’s first poet laureate. And he doesn’t try to compartmentalize his two areas of interest.
“(Medicine and poetry) are kind of parallel things for me,” he says. “I was always a writer and always someone who was very interested in literature for years. I did medicine as a way to sort of facilitate being a writer. The two things overlap – but very rarely.”
The Early Stages
Majmudar, a son of Indian immigrants, was born in Jamaica, Queens. But only six months after his birth, his parents moved near Cincinnati, then to a suburb outside of Cleveland. As physicians, they needed to move to an area where doctors were in higher demand. His father worked in internal medicine, and his mother in emergency care.
“(Being a physician) was part of the family profession,” Majmudar says, adding that he has a sister who is a doctor as well. “Everyone in our family did medicine. It was what people did when they grew up.”
He says his parents were not direct influences, but their respective careers did encourage Majmudar to practice medicine.
A promising student, Majmudar, 37, obtained his medical degree at only 23 years old. He completed an accelerated program straight out of high school and went on to study at the University of Akron. He stayed there for two years before he went to medical school at Northeast Ohio Medical University.
Majmudar briefly considered neurology before he ultimately decided to practice radiology.
“I thought the brain was fascinating,” he says. “I definitely find neurological disorders more interesting.”
Radiology provided a different – but appealing – dynamic. It allowed him to focus more on science.
“I like the detachment (of radiology),” Majmudar says. “I am allowed to concentrate on … the physics.”
Becoming Ohio’s First Poet Laureate
Majmudar has been a reader for as long as he can remember. Growing up, he read tirelessly, he says. Shakespeare is a favorite of his, as is Cormac McCarthy.
He doesn’t let his career in medicine get in the way of his hobby.
“I still read a lot,” he says. “I’m kind of all over the place when it comes to influences and favorite writers. I also don’t have a single way in which an inspiration then becomes a poem. Anything can trigger it. … I’ll want to write in a certain meter. That’s kind of how it goes. I don’t decline any trigger for a poem.”
That includes historical eras, certain words, an image, a sound. In order to concentrate on his work, Majmudar does not listen to music or leave his home to write in a coffee shop. He enjoys working in complete silence, often using the same headphones air traffic controllers wear to muffle sounds.
“I like to just write in my study,” he says.
Majmudar says he is always working on the next project. The poem he is most proud of is Dothead, which was published in the New Yorker in 2011. In addition to the New Yorker, he has also been published in The Atlantic, the Norton Introduction to Literature, The Best American Poetry 2007 and more.
In 2015, his hard work paid off when Gov. John Kasich named Majmudar Ohio’s first poet laureate.
The position is fairly broad, giving Majmudar a platform on which to promote poetry throughout the state through various programs and initiatives. One such program involves assisting 15 students from Ohio’s most underprivileged school districts in publishing their work in The Kenyon Review, an Ohio literary journal.
“We’ll be able to get these students a start in the world of publishing poetry,” Majmudar says. “They’ll be getting wisdom from one of their elders in the art.”
Dr. Amit Majmudar
Dr. Amit Majmudar is a novelist, poet, essayist and diagnostic nuclear radiologist. He completed his medical degree at Northeast Ohio Medical University. Majmudar writes and practices in Dublin, where he lives with his wife, twin sons and baby daughter. In 2015, he was named Ohio’s first poet laureate.
Hannah Bealer is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
