On Thursday, Dec. 4, Terrence Holt came to the Newtown campus to read some of his work as part of the Wordsmith series. He read from his latest book, “Internal Medicine,” which is a collection of short stories loosely based on his real work as a doctor.

Holt taught English Literature and creative writing for a decade before enrolling in medical school. He now teaches and practices medicine in North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Getting a chance to meet him before he did the readings was a real privilege. He was a very easygoing guy and even had a good sense of humor. He was also very humble.

A lot of his stories are based on real-life situations that he changes up slightly. With his many years of experience and all his schooling it was very easy for him to make his stories into works of fiction. He admits the reason he did fiction was “it makes people believe I’m not writing about my patients which I’m not but, it’s just extra protection.”

The story he read was about an overweight women in her final hours, as told through the eyes of her doctor. Holt did a very good job of making it easy to understand. He even included a lot of medical terms, jargon that he said made the story more realistic. His knowledge made the story that much more interesting because it is the terminology that doctors use on a day-to-day basis.

He had a very clear voice and confidence in what he was reading. He barely stopped to take a breath for about 30 minutes straight, and only took one drink of water, which was impressive.

He put a lot of detail into his story and great imagery that really created images in your head. You could really feel like you were in the room while this was all happening.

After he was done reading he had conversation with everyone. He talked about how long he worked in the field and even how he finds time to write and be a doctor and teach at the same time. He said that he wakes up very early so he can write. He said “ If I write at least an hour a day I’m happy.”