Dr. John Stone was honored with a Doctor of Humane Letters during Millsaps College’s commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 10.
Born in Jackson, Miss., Dr. Stone grew up in Jackson and in Palestine, Texas. He is a poet, essayists, cardiologist and lecturer. He graduated from Millsaps College in 1958 before going on to receive his M.D. from Washington University in St. Louis. He is an emeritus professor of medicine, specializing in cardiology, at Emory University.
“Dr. Stone is a renowned professor of cardiology who has distinguished himself in his medical exploration of the human heart and through his extraordinary investigation into the human soul by way of the written word,” said Millsaps College President Dr. Frances Lucas during the outdoor ceremony.
In 2003, Stone received the Mastership designation from the American College of Physicians, and in 2006, he was inducted as an Honorary Fellow of the College of Physicians in Philadelphia. His medical alma mater granted him the Alumni Achievement Award in May 2007.
His co-editorship of On Medicine is a union of literature and medicine and the anthology has been given to medical students across the United States for more than 15 years.
In 2002, Dr. Stone was interviewed by Stylus, the Millsaps student literary magazine. He was asked about handling the seemingly different ideals of science and literature.
“I’ve never thought that the two fields of study were that different from one another. Science and literature, after all, are both ways of knowing, of understanding the world. All windows open to the same world,” he said in the interview.
