Commentary on Excerpts From <i>The Letters of Anton Chekhov, Letters of Anton Chekhov,</i> and <i>Doctor Chekhov</i>
Journal: Academic Medicine
Year: 2015

On June 16, 1884, around the same time that William Osler accepted his appointment as professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, a young man from the provincial port town of Taganrog, Russia, graduated from the medical school at Moscow State University. The young man’s father was a failed shopkeeper; his grandfather, a freed serf. Having gone bankrupt in Taganrog, the family sought a fresh start in Moscow. Although the youth had won a full scholarship, he had to “moonlight” through