Editing Walker Percy (section)

== Medical training and tuberculosis ==
[[File:Lower Saranac Lake, Adirondack Mountains, New York, 1902.jpg|thumb|[[Lower Saranac Lake]] in the [[Adirondack Mountains|Adirondacks]], where Percy spent time recovering from tuberculosis]]
Percy received an [[Doctor of Medicine|M.D.]] from [[Columbia University]]'s [[Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons|College of Physicians and Surgeons]] in [[New York City]] in 1941, intending to become a [[psychiatrist]].<ref name=unc /> There, he spent five days a week in [[psychoanalysis]] with Janet Rioch, to whom he had been referred by [[Harry Stack Sullivan]], a friend of Uncle Will. After three years, Walker decided to quit the psychoanalysis and later reflected on his treatment as inconclusive.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/15/books/an-inheritance-of-death.html|title=An Inheritance of Death|newspaper=The New York Times|date=15 November 1992|last1=Bell|first1=Madison Smartt}}</ref> Percy became an intern at [[Bellevue Hospital]] in Manhattan in 1942 but contracted [[tuberculosis]] the same year while he was performing an autopsy at Bellevue.<ref name="NYTimes Obituary"/> At the time, there was no known treatment for the disease other than rest. While he had only a "minimal lesion"<ref>{{cite book|author=Walker Percy|title=More Conversations with Walker Percy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bEGV97VHLAMC&pg=PA218|year=1993|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-0-87805-623-1|page=218}}</ref> that caused him little pain, he was forced to abandon his medical career and to leave the city. Percy spent several years recuperating at the [[Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium|Trudeau Sanitorium]] in [[Saranac Lake, New York|Saranac Lake]], in the [[Adirondack Mountains]] of [[Upstate New York]]. He spent his time sleeping, reading, and listening to his radio to hear updates on [[World War II]]. He was envious of his brothers, who were both enlisted in the war and fighting overseas.<ref>{{harvp|Wilson|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=sMFVDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 11]}}.</ref> During this period, Percy used Trudeau's Mellon Library, which held over 7,000 titles. He read the works of Danish [[existentialism|existentialist]] philosopher [[Søren Kierkegaard]] as well as [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]], [[Gabriel Marcel]], [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], [[Franz Kafka]], and [[Thomas Mann]]. He began to question the ability of science to explain the basic mysteries of human existence. He began to rise daily at dawn to attend [[Mass (liturgy)|Mass]].<ref name="hanley"/><ref name="Jessica Hooten Wilson 12">{{harvp|Wilson|2018|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=sMFVDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA12 12]}}.</ref>

In August 1944, Percy was pronounced healthy enough to leave Trudeau and was discharged. He traveled to New York City to see [[Huger Jervey]], dean of [[Columbia Law School]] and a friend of Percy. He then lived for two months in [[Atlantic City, New Jersey]], with his brother Phin, who was on leave from the Navy.{{sfnp|Elie|2003|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=EOZqLmBU4NoC&pg=PA141 141]}} In the spring of 1945, Percy returned to Columbia as an instructor of pathology and took up residence with Huger Jervey. In May, an X-ray revealed a resurgence of the [[Mycobacterium tuberculosis|bacillus]].{{sfnp|Wyatt-Brown|1996|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=bMbnCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA304 304]}} Percy consequently traveled to [[Wallingford, Connecticut]], to stay at Gaylord Farm Sanatorium.<ref>{{cite book|author=William Rodney Allen|title=Walker Percy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0xOHT2xGU9MC&pg=PA15|year=1986|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-1-61703-535-7|page=15}}</ref><ref>{{cite thesis |last=Nicholson |first=Joseph |date=April 2006 |title=Listening to the Dead: Marginalia in Walker Percy's Private Library |type=Masters Paper |publisher=[[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]] |url=https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/concern/masters_papers/t722hd64d |access-date=29 June 2019}}</ref><ref name="Jessica Hooten Wilson 12"/>

Years later, Percy reflected on his illness with more fondness than he had then felt at the time: "I was the happiest man ever to contract tuberculosis, because it enabled me to get out of Bellevue and quit medicine."{{sfnp|Wyatt-Brown|1996|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=bMbnCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA303 303]}}