About Gregory L Phelps MD
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Gwen's encouragement led to the first drafts of what we hope will be the mystery called Corner's Dance.
But Education of a Hospice Doctor demanded attention first. I once heard a comment that if you carry around a story that you think about every day for over a year, you need to write it down. Education of a Hospice Doctor got carried around that way for several years. It is a deeply personal memoir of going back to school at age 55 to learn about end of life care as a Fellow in Hospice an Palliative Medicine. It is about both end of life as well as personal struggles with my own health (bad patient -remember?)
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I have has always been passionate about writing and storytelling. My mother was a reader and a librarian. My first job was working in the local library shelving books. A lot of books went home with me instead!
Writing is often is noticing what other people fail to. I began with medical articles. Fresh out of residency I teamed up with an ambitious lab director at my small hospital in Chester County S.C. . We noticed a lot of eye infections and we were able to provide early documentation of of chlamydia as an epidemic sexually transmitted Infection.
A subsequent enthusiasm for diagnosing syphilis lead to being mocked dubbed the "Syphilis King" of South Carolina. Subsequent articles, first scientific and later personal came along as Medical Economics published my article about being a terrible patient and comical experiences as the drug testing industry got started.
(It helps to have a strong sense of the ridiculous)
Subsequently book chapters on drug testing, domestic violence and pulmonary function testing ensued. A chance late night discussion in the ER with the night lab tech led to the first foray in fiction. The lab tech Gwendolyn Faith Hunter had recently published her first (of now many) mystery novel(s) as Gwen Hunter. Later Gwen branched out into writing fantasy novels as Faith Hunter some of which were set in Knoxville where Greg had the pleasure of driving her around while her husband Rod took notes so the stories would be accurately set.
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A Brief Bio
I am originally from Bloomfield Hills, a suburb of Detroit. After a family breakup and divorce over alcoholism my now single mother moved south to South Carolina. She raised incredibly competitive kids. All three of us have a doctorate in something. My brother and I engaged a competition we called "paper warfare" as to who could get the most
certificates and accolades. This led to a life long commitment to learning that resulted in two additional masters degrees and certification in four or five specialties.
My wife Gayle says with exasperation that I have professional ADD. So it it was almost over her "dead body" that I went back to school yet again to learn about end of life care. Of course that wasn't the end. I just finished a four year program called Education for Ministry by the theology school at University of the South in May 2021. But for all the schooling, what I still struggle to learn about is myself.
