Daniel Marchalik, MD, MA is a physician, urologist and medical humanities scholar. He is the Executive Director of the MedStar Health Center for Wellbeing, Director of the Kidney Stone Program at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center, Creator and Director of the Literature and Medicine Track at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, as well as the Associate Director of the Georgetown University Medical Humanities Initiative.
Not only has he done significant research on kidney stones, but he is also an expert on physician wellbeing. In different studies, he and his research team have identified the positive impact that literature has on physician wellbeing, showing how reading fiction decreases risk of burnout.
Dr. Marchalik’s interest in literature began early in his career. As an English major at Rutgers University, he did a senior thesis on illness narratives, which first allowed him to explore the intersection of literature and medicine. During his surgical training in urology at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, he further explored that intersection, completing an MA in English at Georgetown University. This work led him to create the Literature and Medicine Track at the Georgetown University School of Medicine–work that was foundational for the launch of the Medical Humanities Initiative.
Dr. Marchalik is the author of a monthly column in the Lancet, where he explores the intersection of literature, medicine, and wellbeing. He also conducts significant studies in physician burnout, published across a variety of leading medical journals.
“A Pilot Study to Understand the Role of Medical Humanities in Medical Education”
September 26th, 2022
Clark Pitcher, Arya Prasad, Daniel Marchalik, Hunter Groninger, Lakshmi Krishnan and Michael Pottash study the perception of the students enrolled in the Georgetown University Medical Humanities Initiative of the benefits of a medical humanities curriculum.…
“Physicians in the Digital Age”
January 15th, 2022
Dr. Daniel Marchalik and Dr. Edward Melnick look at what Philip K. Dick’s dystopian novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? can teach us about AI & medicine.…
“The Great Gatsby and the Challenge of Unreliable Narrators”
July 17th, 2021
Dr. Daniel Marchalik and Dr. Matthew W. McCarthy tackle the enduring literary debate on the reliability of Nick Carraway, the narrator of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, to answer the question of how do clinicians balance the importance of believing what patients say with the need to be discerning critics?…
“Transformative Experiences and A Young Doctor’s Notebook”
January 23rd, 2021
Dr. Daniel Marchalik and Dr. Andrew Lipsky look at LA Paul’s Transformative Experience to understand the implications and rationale behind the decision of becoming a physician.…
Daniel Marchalik Writes on How Gratitude Can Help to Reduce Burnout in Hospital Caregivers
December 18th, 2020
In this entry for the MedStar Health Blog, Dr. Daniel Marchalik writes about the prevalence of burnout amongst healthcare professionals, and how the recent public health crisis has further expanded that issue, and talks about how patients and loved ones of those who are sick can help reduce caregiver burnout.…
“Literature’s Lessons for Medical Students”, Daniel Marchalik’s Reflections on the MedStar Health Blog
September 18th, 2017
Drawing from his trajectory studying both medicine and literature, Dr. Daniel Marchalik reflects about the value of applying literature to the medical field in this post on the MedStar Health Blog.…
“The Future of Genetics—How Far Is Too Far?”, Claire McDaniel and Daniel Marchalik’s Entry on The Doctor’s Book Club
August 10th, 2017
In this entry on The Doctor’s Book Club, Dr. Daniel Marchalik and Claire McDaniel explore Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Gene: An Intimate History, which traces the long history of genetics and our understanding of evolution, from the ancient Greek scientists to today’s high-tech university labs.…
“We Doctors See Death all around Us, But We Don’t Like to Think about Our Own”, Daniel Marchalik Writes on The Washington Post
August 15th, 2016
In this piece published on The Washington Post, Dr. Daniel Marchalik writes about how Paul Kalanithi’s memoir, “When Breath Becomes Air”, confronted him and his friends from medical school with the fear of their own death.…
Fox 5 Covers the New MedStar Health Center for Wellbeing, with Daniel Marchalik
February 28th, 2022
Fox 5 covers the new MedStar Health Center for Wellbeing, featuring Dr. Daniel Marchalik, its executive director, and Crystal Morales, one of its leaders. Fox 5 describes that this local initiative “aims at making sure health care workers tune into their own wellbeing”.…
Scrub In Podcast, Episode 9: Getting Centered on Wellbeing, with Dr. Daniel Marchalik
February 8th, 2022
This episode of the Scrub In podcast focuses on the new MedStar Health Center for Wellbeing. Host Crystal Morales, one of the leaders of this new Center, talks with Dr. Daniel Marchalik, its executive director.…
LinkedIn Live: MedStar Health Center for Wellbeing with Dr. Daniel Marchalik
March 1st, 2022
On Tuesday, March 1 at 12:00 p.m., the MedStar Health Center for Wellbeing hosted its first LinkedIn Live.…
Dr. Daniel Marchalik and Dr. Hunter Groninger on Beyond Burnout–The Healing Power of Fiction
February 6th, 2019
On February 6 2019, Dr. Daniel Marchalik and Dr. Hunter Groninger spoke at the University of Virginia’s Medical Center Hour about emerging research on books’ benefits for doctors and trace their own experience with the Literature and Medicine Track at the Georgetown University School of Medicine.…
