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Christine Elaine Montross (born 1973) is an American medical doctor and writer. First a published poet and a high school teacher, she later took up medical studies, and became an assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at
Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
's
Alpert Medical School The Warren Alpert Medical School (formerly known as Brown Medical School, previously known as Brown University School of Medicine) is the medical school of Brown University, located in Providence, Rhode Island. Originally established in 1811, it ...
. She is the recipient of a 2015
Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
.


Personal life and early career

Montross was born to Scott and Janice Montross. She is a sister of former
NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
basketball player and sports commentator
Eric Montross Eric Scott “Big Grits” Montross (born September 23, 1971) is an American former professional basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for eight seasons with the Boston Celtics, Dallas Mavericks, New Jersey Nets ...
. Montross grew up in
Indianapolis Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...
before moving to
Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...
to attend the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
. There, she studied
French literature French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than Fr ...
and
environmental science Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physical geograp ...
as an undergraduate and went on to receive a
Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...
in poetry from the same university in 1998. She had her works published in various
literary journal A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters ...
s including '' Calyx'', ''
Witness In law, a witness is someone who has knowledge about a matter, whether they have sensed it or are testifying on another witnesses' behalf. In law a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, e ...
'', and '' Alligator Juniper''. While a graduate student, she also met her wife, Deborah Salem Smith; the two moved to
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
together. Montross' experiences there as a teacher at a
charter school A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic principle of auto ...
for
at-risk students An at-risk student is a term used in the United States to describe a student who requires temporary or ongoing intervention in order to succeed academically. Richardson, Val, comp. "At-Risk Student Intervention Implementation Guide." The Education ...
led to her interest in psychiatry; after a year doing
pre-medical Pre-medical (often referred to as pre-med) is an educational track that undergraduate students in the United States pursue prior to becoming medical students. It involves activities that prepare a student for medical school, such as pre-med course ...
coursework at
Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...
, she entered the Brown University School of Medicine in September 2001. While a medical student, she also pursued
independent study Independent study is a form of education offered by many high schools, colleges, and other educational institutions. It is sometimes referred to as ''directed study'', and is an educational activity undertaken by an individual with little to no supe ...
under
Carole Maso Carole Maso is a contemporary American novelist and essayist, known for her experimental, poetic and fragmentary narratives which are often called postmodern. She is a recipient of a 1993 Lannan Literary Award for Fiction. Biography Maso was bo ...
of Brown's literary arts program. She received her MD degree in 2006 and her Master of Medical Science degree in 2007, and completed her
residency Residency may refer to: * Domicile (law), the act of establishing or maintaining a residence in a given place ** Permanent residency, indefinite residence within a country despite not having citizenship * Residency (medicine), a stage of postgrad ...
in 2010. She went on to be appointed to her current position of assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior.


Books


''Body of Work''

Montross' first book, ''Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab'', is a memoir of her time as a medical student. She wrote it during her first year at Brown. A major theme of ''Body of Work'' is the reactions of Montross and her student colleagues to their first
dissection Dissection (from Latin ' "to cut to pieces"; also called anatomization) is the dismembering of the body of a deceased animal or plant to study its anatomical structure. Autopsy is used in pathology and forensic medicine to determine the cause o ...
of a human corpse, which they nickname "Eve". More broadly, Montross also discusses the
history of anatomy The history of anatomy extends from the earliest examinations of sacrifice, sacrificial victims to the sophisticated analyses of the body performed by modern anatomists and scientists. Written descriptions of human organs and parts can be traced ...
, including her visit to
Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...
to see the laboratory where
Andreas Vesalius Andreas Vesalius (Latinized from Andries van Wezel) () was a 16th-century anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human anatomy, ''De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem'' (''On the fabric of the human body'' '' ...
performed the dissections which led to his influential work on human anatomy, ''
De humani corporis fabrica ''De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem'' (Latin, lit. "On the fabric of the human body in seven books") is a set of books on human anatomy written by Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) and published in 1543. It was a major advance in the history ...
''. Montross appeared on
C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...
's Q&A for an interview with
Brian Lamb Brian Patrick Lamb (; born October 9, 1941) is an American journalist. He is the founder, executive chairman, and the now-retired CEO of C-SPAN, an American cable network that provides coverage of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Sen ...
about the book. Rachel Hartigan Shea of ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' praised ''Body of Work'' as "a beautiful book" which "offers of a place off limits to anyone without Montross's clearsighted courage", while
Katie Roiphe Katie Roiphe (born July 13, 1968) is an American author and journalist. She is best known as the author of the non-fiction book '' The Morning After: Fear, Sex and Feminism'' (1994). She is also the author of ''Last Night in Paradise: Sex and Mora ...
of ''
The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...
'' named it an Editor's Choice.


''Falling Into the Fire''

Montross received the MacColl Johnson Fellowship in 2010, using the award money to conduct research in Paris on the origins of psychiatric treatment and to begin work on a collection of poetry, tentatively titled ''Lunacy and Light''. That project evolved into ''Falling Into the Fire: A Psychiatrist's Encounters with the Mind in Crisis'', a nonfiction work that discusses
mental disorder A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...
s in a series of case studies. The profiles are interspersed with anecdotes from Montross's domestic life.


''Waiting for an Echo: The Madness of American Incarceration''

Montross used her 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship grant award to work on a third book about
mentally ill people in United States jails and prisons Mentally ill people are overrepresented in United States jail and prison populations relative to the general population. There are three times more seriously mentally ill persons in jails and prisons than in hospitals in the United States. Scholar ...
, titled ''Waiting for an Echo: The Madness of American Incarceration''. In the course of her research, she studied correctional institutions in the United States and abroad, including the
Cook County Jail The Cook County Jail, located on in South Lawndale, Chicago, Illinois, is operated by the Sheriff of Cook County. A city jail has existed on this site since after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, but major County prisoners were not generally coll ...
in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
and
Halden Prison Halden Prison ( no, Halden fengsel) is a maximum-security prison in Halden, Norway. It has three main units and has no conventional security devices. The second-largest prison in Norway, it was established in 2010 with a focus on rehabilitation; ...
in Norway.


References


External links

*
Profile
on
WorldCat Identities WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

Q&A with Physician Writer Christine Montross
on the Student Doctor Network * {{DEFAULTSORT:Montross, Christine Living people Brown University faculty University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni 1973 births American medical writers Women medical writers Alpert Medical School alumni Writers from Indianapolis American women psychiatrists American psychiatrists American women academics 21st-century American women