For Rev. Nathan Carlin, PhD, writing is more than a creative practice—it is a way of exploring the human experience and helping others do the same. Through books, scholarship, and collaborations with clinicians, he uses writing to deepen reflection, strengthen compassion, and bridge the worlds of medicine, ethics, and the humanities.
During his time at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, Carlin, director of the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics, has used writing as a way to better understand himself and others.
“Insight comes through the writing process itself,” Carlin said. “It is through writing that I come to understand what I think and feel.”
He likes to help others write, too, because he believes that writing has moral consequences in the clinical context.
“When health professionals are more reflective, more in touch with their own experience, and more creative, they are less burnt out, and they are able to attend to their patients more compassionately,” Carlin said.
Over the course of his career, Carlin has published 12 books in medical humanities and pastoral theology. While his subjects have evolved, his motivation has remained remarkably consistent.
“I think I’ve always been interested in writing, probably since college,” said Carlin, who holds the Samuel E. Karff, DHL, Chair in the John P. McGovern, MD, Center for Humanities and Ethics and the John P. McGovern, MD, Chair in Medical Humanities.
That interest grew under the mentorship of one of his college professors, historian Russell Martin, whose enthusiasm for scholarship proved contagious.
“I remember him saying that he got the bug, the publishing bug,” Carlin said. “And that happened to me, too. I think his enthusiasm was infectious.”
Although Carlin originally expected to pursue a career in religious studies, his path shifted after joining McGovern Medical School, where he worked with Tom Cole, PhD, the founding director of the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics.
Today, Carlin’s work focuses on topics in medical humanities, and inspiration sometimes arrives in unexpected places.
While walking across Rice University as a graduate student, he looked toward the Texas Medical Center skyline and thought, “My God, those are the cathedrals of our time; those are the priests of our time!”
That moment became the foundation for his book “The Secularization of Medicine,” which examines the parallels between religion and modern healthcare. There is a chapter in the book that understands Dr. Denton Cooley as a kind of secular saint.
As his career has progressed, Carlin’s writing has evolved. His latest project, “A Handbook for Mortals,” co-authored with colleague Renee Flores, MD, MHSA, associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at McGovern Medical School, is designed to help patients and families navigate the end of life through practical guidance rather than academic theory.
“I’m trying to move more in the direction of lay writing to be able to impact more people,” he said.
Balancing writing with his responsibilities as director of the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics and editor of the Journal of Medical Humanities requires discipline.
Carlin arrives on campus early each morning, carving out two uninterrupted hours to write before meetings begin.
“I think writing is the same as other creative things. Pay yourself first,” he said. “Give your writing the best you have from your mind early in the day. You don’t want to give the best of your mind to emails.”
For Carlin, writing fulfills a deeply personal need to create.
“I think it’s part of human nature to want to be creative,” he said. “For me, it happens to be writing.”
That philosophy extends into his books, where he intentionally weaves together personal stories and lived experiences alongside scholarship.
“I like an emphasis on other people’s stories and experience,” he said. “I feel like it makes the writing come alive. It makes it meaningful. It creates an avenue for connection.”
Collaboration has become another defining part of his work. Whether writing alongside faculty colleagues or editing collections featuring former McGovern Medical School students, Carlin believes every partnership produces something stronger than any one author could accomplish alone.
“When I do something with somebody else, it always comes out so much better than I could ever do on my own, simply because they see things in a different way,” he said.
Even after publishing a dozen books, Carlin continues to look ahead. Among the projects he hopes to tackle is a book exploring the ethics and psychology of humor in medicine, which will include interviews with clinicians across the Texas Medical Center.
For now, though, writing remains what it has always been: a daily practice of curiosity, creativity, and connection.