On the Move: A Life

Oliver Sacks was a gay motorcycle-riding author who happened to be an accomplished neurologist. On the Move is a history of his life. He spent time as a drug addict, motorcyclist and bodybuilder before focussing on his medical career. From a young age, he found that he had a talent for writing. In college, he was near the bottom of his class, yet won a prestigious award due to his skills writing on scientific topics. He came from a family of doctors, and was steered towards medical school. (I have a suspicion he would have had a very different career otherwise.)

After medical school, he went to the United States. He tolerated the east coast, but fell in love with California. He lived much of his adult life in America, but remained a British citizen. He grew up at a time when being homosexual was a crime. He was somewhat active in the gay scene in his youth, but had a multi-decade period of celibacy later in life. He also experimented with drugs and and recorded his experiences before giving up drugs and moving.

He has a very personal approach to his medical practice. He has written many works on his medical experiences that focus on the individual case histories. He writes about many patients in which he has had a closer relationship. He sought to know the whole patient. In some cases this allowed him to identified nuances of the diseases and treatments. He also treated himself as a patient, writing about some of the interesting conditions that he had experienced.