Discover all about the dual vocation of Dirk of Babylon

For 28 years, Dr. Van Breusegem, aka Dirk van Babylon, has been a general practitioner at the Papenvest Medical medical practice. Soon he will take a step back. Once he reaches retirement age, he will continue to practice medicine part-time. He would prefer to devote the time that becomes available to literary pursuits. He has also been doing this for many years, under the pseudonym Dirk van Babylon! Doctor Van Breusegem reveals all about his double career in this interview.

Why did you want to become a general practitioner? Or a writer?

My mother suffered from multiple sclerosis. My childhood was dominated by illness and care. She made me promise that I would become a doctor. Of all the professions, she thought medicine was the best. When I sometimes suggested that I wanted to be a lawyer, or a writer, she subtly brushed those ideas off the table. Because of the sad atmosphere in our home due to her illness, I discovered reading as a kind of escape from reality. Out of that arose my dream of becoming a writer.

So when did you actually start writing?

I made my first attempts at writing in my college days. They did not go too smoothly, I must say. Lacking knowledge and experience, the writing process led more to frustration than satisfaction. But one learns by doing, of course. While working my first years as a general practitioner, in a practice in Uccle, I patiently continued my literary activity. And in 1986, I wrote my debut novel, “The Black Bridegroom,” under the pseudonym Dirk van Babylon.

I had so much success with the book that I quit as a general practitioner. I threw myself partly into my writing career and partly into AIDS activism. After several years of dividing my time between literature and the AIDS cause, I took a different path. I worked for the industry as an editor, translator and publisher. To finally, in 1993, resume my medical career, in our Brussels practice which I then took over from a fellow GP.

So as of 1993, you were working as a general practitioner again. Was that the end of your writing career?

Certainly not! Although, of course, from then on it was at a much reduced level. I wrote another three novels, including ‘Miguel Molinos, the last heretic’. I still spend several hours every day writing stories, poems, sonnets … I publish them on this website. And I’m active in a poetry club.

Why your idea to write under an alias?

My first novel was autobiographical and in the story the author, me, revealed that he was gay. At the time, in the late ’80s, I did worry that it would get me into trouble as a doctor. Meanwhile, I have long since come out openly for it and have never faced any negative consequences. But back then it was still a big taboo in Flanders.

I was soon exposed as the author of my books, though. Gone was the anonymity of Dirk of Babylon. Yet I continued to use the pseudonym, since I am a very different person as a writer than as a doctor. And I find that my patients do not consult with Dirk van Babylon, but with Peter Van Breusegem.

Where you do write under your physician name is on your medical website, right?

That’s right. On the practice’s website, in addition to practical information, there are extensive articles about problems that I regularly encounter in practice. I want to inform patients as well as possible, and explain to them where they can go with these common problems. In this way, as a general practitioner, I act as a “guide” in the maze that is our social system.

You are now nearing retirement age. Will you then soon become a full-time author?

Let’s just say that starting in mid-2021, I will start dividing my time between my medical and my literary careers. I will definitely remain active in our general practice for several more years. I have built such a strong bond with some patients that I find it hard to let them go. But I am eagerly looking forward to writing more. I have no less than four manuscripts in the drawer!

Can you tell us anything about that already?

With pleasure! The first book will be an account of correspondence between my parents in the early 1950s. It will be published by the end of this year, if all goes well. Another will be about substance abuse and addiction, an issue with which I come into frequent contact in practice, and which I therefore know a thing or two about. With that book, I would like to dispel some widespread misconceptions and combat the stigma that users suffer from. The third manuscript contains my memoirs as a general practitioner. With it, I would like to highlight a number of social problems such as addiction, abortion, euthanasia … Finally, the fourth will be a provocative book in which I give the word to God Himself!

Do you have a special message for your patients at the end of your medical career?

Well, first of all, “I will miss you! Many have already told me that they are going to miss me, and that is mutual. I learned an enormous amount from my patients, and it was my great privilege that they put their trust in me as a family physician. I have always tried to treat everyone equally and respectfully, without distinction of gender, orientation, skin color, religion or anything else.

I have also always fought against the exercise of violence, and unfortunately I note that violence in society is anything but decreasing. Moreover, there is a lot of hatred and exclusion. I always saw it as my mission to act against that, and somehow I will always continue to do so, be it as a doctor, be it as a writer.

Would you like to stay up to date with the literary activities of Doctor Van Breusegem, aka Dirk van Babylon? Then follow him on the Facebook page www.facebook.com/dirkvanbabylon

 

Written by Sara Dekesel.

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