Despite already being a New York Times best-selling author, in the 1980s, no one in the US really knew Noah Gordon. That didn’t change when he published what would become his most popular work, The Physician, in 1986. The book sold like hotcakes overseas, especially in Germany, Italy, and Spain. But in the US? Crickets, comparatively speaking.
Even so, it took almost 30 years until the novel was turned into a movie. The film was a German production with an English-speaking cast and shot mostly in Germany, with parts taking place in Morocco. It’s hard to depict the 11th-century Persian desert in Thuringia, I imagine.
The story sees Tom Payne as Robert Cole, an English peasant, study medicine, first at home, then in the distant city of Isfahan at the height of a Golden Age. Persians are living peacefully side by side with a minority of Jews, and knowledge is prospering in the city, most notably under physician Ibn Sina, known to us Westerners as Avicenna, played by Ben Kingsley in the movie.
At first, Rob learns a lot and is excited by the much more structured approach to medicine the Persians practice. But when the Black Death strikes Isfahan, Rob’s conviction in the power of healing begins to crumble. He sees the death toll rising every day as he and his fellow doctors can do little but comfort their patients and wait to find out who makes it through.
Despite this, Ibn Sina remains steadfast and urges Rob to treat every patient with the same care, attention, and respect. At one point, Rob asks his mentor: “Do you never doubt your calling?” Ibn Sina can only scoff: “Every morning and every evening.” But as Rob looks on incredulously, the master adds the important part: “In between I work too hard to think about it.”
When Noah Gordon died at the age of 95, he had published eight novels and a collection of children’s stories. I bet he sat at his dinner table with his head in his hands more than once. Before his debut novel came out, perhaps. Surely when The Physician was a flop in the US, and perhaps once again after it took off in Europe. Maybe he didn’t like the movie, or maybe he liked it so much he wondered why he hadn’t structured his book more like the film, which varies quite a lot from the original text.
A calling is something too important to ignore. It’s also too big to come without sacrifice. If our commitment to being a doctor, a writer, a mother, didn’t make us question our life choices at times, how much of a commitment would it really be? Cold feet are part of treading where we can truly make a difference.
Worry is normal. Just don’t worry too much about your worrying. You can doubt your calling twice a day and still be the greatest physician in the world.
