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The cover of Dr. David Biro\u2019s fifth book, \u201cThe Unstoppables,\u201d a novel set in Bay Ridge.Courtesy of Regalo Press\n<\/p>\nDr. David Biro, a dermatologist in Bay Ridge, where he grew up, is telling a story about a difficult day in a physician\u2019s waiting room. A patient, frustrated by a long wait, pulls a gun, and an already complicated profession becomes much more complicated.<\/p>\n
Rather than recounting a story from his own waiting room, the Bay Ridge dermatologist and nonfiction and fiction author was describing a scene from his fifth book, \u201cThe Unstoppables\u201d (Regalo Press, an imprint associated with Simon & Schuster). He held a signing at his hometown bookstore, The BookMark Shoppe, on Wednesday, Aug. 19.<\/p>\n
In addition to being a dermatologist at Bay Ridge Skin and Cancer Dermatology P.C., Dr. Biro is an author with a doctorate in literature whose nonfiction and fiction have been published by major presses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was always a big reader. I was always into literature and reading,\u201d Dr. Biro, 62, said recently. \u201cI love to read and experience these alternate worlds. I like language and people who have a way with words.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Unstoppables,\u201d like much of his work, is set in Bay Ridge, where he grew up and now practices. It tells the story of Dr. Richard Kline.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAll my stories pretty much take place in Bay Ridge,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a place that means to me so much growing up and practicing there. I\u2019m drawn to Bay Ridge and the Verrazano Bridge.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The story follows a doctor facing adversity who turns to old friends for help in a tale involving crime, romance, childhood and friendship.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe story goes back and forth with those three boys, the Unstoppables. They did all sorts of crazy things,\u201d he continued. \u201cAs the doctor goes to them for help, they\u2019ll get into more trouble together I think the most important thing about this book is friendship. a childhood friendship rekindled in adult life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Biro followed in the footsteps of his father, Laszlo, a Hungarian immigrant who came to the United States in 1956 and became a dermatologist. Biro grew up in Bay Ridge, attended Poly Prep High School and took over his father\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel lucky to have grown up in a place like Bay Ridge in a time where there were no cell phones, no helicopter parenting,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were more free.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
He studied classics at the University of Pennsylvania, reading Greek and Latin authors such as Virgil, Horace and Ovid, before attending Columbia University\u2019s medical school.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI started wondering if I made the right decision when I went from classics to medicine,\u201d Dr. Biro said. \u201cI took some classes at Columbia\u2019s downtown campus. I met a history of medicine professor who became a mentor.\u201d<\/p>\n
He decided to take a leave of absence after his third year to obtain a doctorate in English literature at Oxford University, writing a thesis about the language of pain. He then \u201cwent back to get a medical degree,\u201d becoming a general dermatologist specializing in cancer care and skin cancer surgery.<\/p>\n
While physician authors are not as common as attorney authors, Dr. Biro points to well-known physicians who also became authors, including W. Somerset Maugham, Anton Chekhov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle and Michael Crichton.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a doctor, you\u2019re thrust into very emotional, high-stakes stories, meeting all sorts of different people along the way,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of material that you can probably get from one\u2019s experiences as a doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doctors take a patient\u2019s history, but Dr. Biro said a patient\u2019s \u201cstory\u201d is crucial to caring for them.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cStory is important to both,\u201d he said. \u201cNarrative is critical for a doctor, to learn what\u2019s going on with a patient, what brought them there.\u201d
\nThe cover of Dr. David Biro\u2019s fifth book, \u201cThe Unstoppables,\u201d a novel set in Bay Ridge.Courtesy of Regalo Press\n<\/p>\n
He began by writing a memoir after finishing medical school, when he was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder and needed a bone marrow transplant. He wrote \u201c100 Days: My Unexpected Journey from Doctor to Patient,\u201d published by Pantheon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI developed this problem in my eye. My blood count started dropping. Within six months, I had a bone marrow transplant,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was a harrowing experience. I wrote about it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The New York Times Book Review called his first book a \u201cvivid memoir\u2026lucid and gentle. It is the story of a doctor with the heart of a poet.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
His second book, \u201cThe Language of Pain: Finding Words, Compassion, and Relief,\u201d was based on his doctoral dissertation. He then wrote two novels, published by Lake Union.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Magnificent Dappled Sea\u201d was released in 2020, its title drawn from what a doctor sees when looking at blood cells through a microscope. The book is about a boy in Italy who needs a bone marrow transplant, which he receives through an international registry from a rabbi in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd The Bridge is Love,\u201d published in 2021, is about three older women who meet every Tuesday in a secluded spot near the Verrazano Bridge, telling stories, drinking and watching boats go by.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cEventually, they decide time is running out and they need to do something,\u201d Dr. Biro said. \u201cMaybe instead of watching the boats, they should go on the boats.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Unstoppables\u201d begins with a quote from poet Louise Gl\u00fcck: \u201cYou look at the world once in childhood,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThe rest is memory.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it conveys something about this,\u201d he said. \u201cThese three guys don\u2019t speak to each other for forty years. They can easily go back to where they were.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Professionally, Dr. Biro is a doctor first, but also a writer and teacher. He teaches a course in medicine and literature at SUNY Downstate Medical Center.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gives students a chance to talk about issues that have come up,\u201d Dr. Biro said. \u201cMedical students are often privy to many serious, emotional experiences. People dying, families upset. They don\u2019t really have time to talk about these things, but they come up in books all the time and students can relate.\u201d<\/p>\n
His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, The Philadelphia Inquirer and various medical journals.\n<\/p>\n
He writes in the mornings before going to work in Bay Ridge, taking a few years to write and edit each book.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great when I hear somebody who read one of my books and really likes it. Or a patient comes up to me and says, \u2018I didn\u2019t know you write,\u2019\u201d Dr. Biro said. \u201cSo much of my life has been the doctoring side. But I wouldn\u2019t trade either one in. I love them both.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. David Biro, a dermatologist in Bay Ridge, where he grew up, is telling a story about a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[2571,7727,123081,2878,123082,123083,2953,9,24,12,370,25648,63,134,136,135,28724,123084],"class_list":["post-327134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-bay-ridge","tag-bay-ridge-skin-and-cancer-dermatology-p-c","tag-books","tag-dermatologist","tag-dr-david-biro","tag-health","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-novel","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-the-bookmark-shoppe","tag-the-unstoppables"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}