Editing Samuel Shem

{{short description|American dramatist}}{{More citations needed|date=April 2024}}

'''Samuel Shem''' is the [[pen name]] of the American [[psychiatrist]] '''Stephen Joseph Bergman''' (born 1944). His main works are ''[[The House of God]]'' and ''Mount Misery'', both fictional but close-to-real first-hand descriptions of the training of doctors in the United States.

Of [[Jews|Jewish]] descent,<ref>[https://www.balliol.ox.ac.uk/news/2016/january/interview-with-balliol-author-samuel-shem "Interview with Balliol author Samuel Shem"], 27 January 2016</ref> Bergman was a [[Rhodes Scholarship|Rhodes Scholar]] at [[Balliol College, Oxford|Balliol College]], [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] in 1966, and was tutored by [[Denis Noble]] FRS, cardiac physiologist and later head of the Oxford Cardiac Electrophysiology Group. In an address to Noble's retirement party at Balliol, he related that Noble's response to Bergman's attempt to become a writer was to ply him with copious sherry.  He graduated from [[Harvard College]] and [[Harvard Medical School]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://med.nyu.edu/faculty/stephen-bergman|title = Stephen Bergman}}</ref>

He was an intern at [[Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center|Beth Israel Hospital]] (subsequently renamed Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) ,which inspired the book ''[[The House of God]]''.

As of 2017, Bergman is a member of the faculty of the [[New York University Grossman School of Medicine|New York University School of Medicine]] at [[NYU Langone Health|NYU Langone Medical Center]].

Shem's play ''[[Bill W. and Dr. Bob]]'' had an Off Broadway run at New World Stage in [[New York City]]. It ran for 132 performances and closed on June 10, 2007. ''[[The New York Times]]'' called it "an insightful new play."

== Bibliography ==
* ''[[The House of God]]'' (1978)
* ''Fine'' (1985)
* ''Mount Misery'' ({{ISBN|0-8041-1555-9}}) (1997)
* ''[[Bill W. and Dr. Bob]]'' (play on [[alcoholism]] and the founders of [[Alcoholics Anonymous]] - [[William Griffith Wilson|Bill W.]] and [[Bob Smith (doctor)|Dr Bob]])(with Janet Surrey, 1990)
* ''We Have to Talk: Healing Dialogues Between Men and Women'' (with Janet Surrey, 1999, {{ISBN|0-465-09114-8}})
* ''The Spirit of the Place'' ({{ISBN|978-0-87338-942-6}}, June 2008)
* ''[https://www.sevenstories.com/books/3914-at-the-heart-of-the-universe At the Heart of the Universe]'' (2016)
* ''Man's 4th Best Hospital'' (2019)
* Our Hospital (2023)

==References==
<references />
* {{cite journal|author=Shem S|title=Fiction as Resistance|journal=Ann Intern Med |year=2002|volume=137|pages=934–7|url=http://www.annals.org/cgi/reprint/137/11/934.pdf|pmid=12459000|issue=11|doi=10.7326/0003-4819-137-11-200212030-00022|s2cid=26729130}}

==External links==
* [http://www.mans4thbesthospital.com Official website]
* [http://www.billwanddrbob.com Bill W. and Dr. Bob.] - Shem's off-Broadway show
* [http://upress.kent.edu/books/Shem_S.htm The Spirit of the Place] - link to publisher's page

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shem, Samuel}}
[[Category:1944 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Harvard Medical School faculty]]
[[Category:American psychiatrists]]
[[Category:Jewish American novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:21st-century American novelists]]
[[Category:American male novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:American male dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American male writers]]
[[Category:Novelists from Massachusetts]]
[[Category:American Rhodes Scholars]]
[[Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Harvard Medical School alumni]]
[[Category:Harvard College alumni]]
[[Category:20th-century pseudonymous writers]]
[[Category:21st-century pseudonymous writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American Jews]]