A local doctor who is also an author, artist and runner has published his second book and plans to donate all the proceeds from its sales to a local nonprofit.

Dr. Randall Fong, 63, of Kennewick, hopes to encourage others to pursue the profession by sharing his own experiences in “From Bedlam to Bedside: The Mad Odyssey of Creating Doctors,” a book he self-published in August.

He writes about the challenges aspiring doctors face in their journey to doctorhood, from deciding to become one to practicing on their own, using humor and personal anecdotes to offset some of the more serious issues in the health care world.

Writing and rewriting

Fong is an ear, nose and throat specialist with a practice in Kennewick through Proliance Surgeons, an organization of independent specialists and surgeons in Washington.

Originally from California, he moved to the Tri-Cities with his wife after completing medical school in Wisconsin, where he joined several solo practitioners.

Although Fong said he had hated English classes as a student, one year he found himself writing a story to his wife for Christmas about what he and their kids had done while she was traveling one week.

After that, he started jotting down things the kids were doing that were irritating. “I kept thinking, ‘Wow, I bet you, this is going to be funny later,’” Fong said. Eventually, he put the collection together into a satirical guidebook of parenting advice not to follow, which he published in 2006.

Fong kept writing over the years, from crafting comical Christmas letters to writing blog posts on medical and lifestyle topics alike. 

“As I got better at writing and expressing things, and found the key – always, for me, the key to writing was rewriting – I just started getting better at it,” he said. 

Modern technology helped with this. Being able to delete and retype words on a computer rather than whiting out and rewriting portions made it easier to edit, he said.

Fong launched his blog eight years ago, mostly giving information about ENT topics, but often colored with his personal experience. Some of his essays have been shared to the website KevinMD, a blog where those in the medical field share their stories.

“From Bedlam to Bedside: The Mad Odyssey of Creating Doctors” by Dr. Randall Fong is in paperback, hardcover or Kindle on Amazon. Copies also are available at his office at 7105 W. Hood Place, Suite A103, Kennewick. 

| Photo by Nathan Finke

Fong thought he should put his musings in a book, and adapted many of his blog posts for that purpose. He wrote his most recent book a little at a time over two or three years and rewrote it at least three times looking for typos and places to rephrase.

The book sheds light on many of the issues physicians continue to face, including the costs of medical education, difficulties with insurance, the cost of health care and malpractice. He makes sure to back up the statistics he uses with references and breaks up the heavier topics with levity.

Fong always had an interest in art, which he continues to pursue. Though he doesn’t have much time, he tries to draw on the weekends or in the evenings to give his mind a break. He illustrated “From Bedlam to Bedside” with his own drawings, and his paintings decorate the halls of his clinic as do his medical drawings.

Grace Clinic donations

Proceeds from the sale of both “The Not-So-Great Guidebook to Childrearing for the Not-So-Bright Parent” and “From Bedlam to Bedside” go to Grace Clinic, a local nonprofit that provides free medical, dental and mental health services to uninsured adults. 

Fong plans to write a check to the nonprofit at the end of the year.

“I never wanted to make money on these,” he said. He picked Grace Clinic when he published his first book because it was local and focused on the medical field. 

Book sales aren’t the only way he supports Grace Clinic.

Fong usually runs one or two marathons per year, and for his 50th birthday, he decided to run 50 kilometers – five miles longer than a marathon – through all four of the cities.

Fong sent an announcement to every doctor he knew telling them about the run and asking them to sponsor him, which helped him commit to doing it. He received over 100 pledges, raising nearly $10,000 for Grace Clinic. 

Medical training

Growing up in California, Fong enjoyed both art and science, and before he started high school, he had come up with the idea of being a surgeon. 

He was partially inspired by an orthopedic surgeon with a great sense of humor who fixed his broken finger in middle school, he said. But at the time, he didn’t know how to pursue this career path.

“It seemed so impossible. It was like a personal dare,” he said, “because I couldn’t think of anything more daring to do, and I knew I could fail, but that was kind of my dream job.”

Fong went on to attend medical school in Wisconsin for nine years and specialized in ENT surgery, a field which includes surgeries on tonsils and sinuses, but also more complicated procedures such as head/neck cancer surgeries. 

His doctor-training experiences were partially what motivated his book. The middle section is dedicated to what students go through on their path to becoming a doctor.

“I don’t think a lot of people appreciate what we go through training,” he said. “… I guess they think it’s almost, like, exaggerated.”

Many of the older surgeons could be mean or demanding, he said, and some of the things medical students experienced were shocking. Fong recalled that during his year in a surgery internship, he used to work 100-hour weeks, but now there’s a cap at 80 hours. 

Despite the challenges to becoming a surgeon, Fong said his work has been worth it. He described some of the surgeries he did as a senior resident: “You’re doing this head/neck cancer surgery, and you’re going, ‘Wow, that was great.’ You’re tired, but you’re just thinking, ‘Yeah, this is worth it.’”

It’s a field where he gets to save lives or transform the quality of people’s lives, Fong said, and as patients begin to recover, they and their families are often deeply grateful.

Fong’s book is available in paperback, hardcover or Kindle on Amazon. Copies of his book are also available at his office at 7105 W. Hood Place, Suite A103, Kennewick.