Rachel Callaghan, novelist, award-winning essayist, ex-short story writer, author of Under Water, writes from experience about traumatic circumstances and the emotional and psychological damage they cause. Starting Hahnemann Medical College (now part of Drexel University) when only 1/11 students in her class were women, she startled the administration by choosing to have a child her senior year. One teaching physician even ordered Dr. Callaghan from rounds for being visibly pregnant, as that might scare the patients. Post medical school, she had Internal Medicine, OB-GYN, and ER experience, but her career was cut short by a diagnosis of stage IV lymphoma. A stem-cell transplant was the cure. What followed was a decade of profound fatigue which left her mourning the loss of patients she loved as friends. The treatment for that was writing about people and making them come alive on the page. Besides writing, she is now a wife, mother, serial home renovator, dog and cat owner, and former traveler who circled the globe at age 21. Dr. Callaghan’s rich life has been instrumental in shaping her fiction.
