About Dr. Eliason
Dr. Eliason’s Biography
Sandra Hager Eliason entered medical school in 1976 with an 18 month old child, only squeaking my by admission interview by telling the committee her husband approved. Raised on the Iron Range of Minnesota with the expectation that she would be a wife and mother, she was told she could go to college to be a teacher or a nurse, “to have something to fall back on” in case she couldn’t get married. She hoped the prestige of medicine would show her father she could be his equal, doing everything a man could do.
The medical system of the 1970s, 80s and 90s made it difficult, but Eliason became Family Medicine Department Head, Chief of Staff at a hospital, Chair of a quality committee for an insurance company, and finally Lead Physician at an Integrated Primary Care Clinic, all the while raising three daughters with the support of her amazing husband.
Eliason won the Minnesota Medicine Magazine Arts Edition writing contest in 2016 for her piece “The Vacation,” which began her transition to fulltime writing. Now retired from the practice of Family Medicine, she has had essays published in Bluestem magazine, West Trade Review, and the Brevity blog. Her work has been anthologized in the e-book Tales From Six Feet Apart, and in Pure Slush: Cow Volume 23. She is a book reviewer for Hippocampus magazine, and is currently querying publishers for her memoir Heal Me: Becoming a Doctor for all the Wrong Reasons (and Finding Myself Anyway). In addition to Hippocampus, Dr. Eliason has had reviews published in the Brevity blog and pending at Rain Taxi. She is currently reviewing new books that you won’t likely find on the New York times best sellers list, but should.
To read these reviews and find the next good book to read, please subscribe using the form below. Or follow me on twitter @SandraHEliason1 or Instagram @sheliasonmd where I will name the book and give a brief synopsis.
You can find her in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lives with her husband. She has a garden in the summer and a cat to warm her lap in the winter. Look for her on
