# Robert Lee and his Undisciplined Medical Self: Life Writing, Character and ‘Technologies of Self’ in the Victorian Medical Profession

## TL;DR

This paper examines how Robert Lee used diary writing to manage his identity as a Victorian medical professional, revealing contradictions in his character and career.

## Contribution

The paper offers a new perspective on Victorian medical self-fashioning through the lens of life writing and Foucauldian 'technologies of self'.

## Key findings

- Lee's diary reveals his attempts to audit and reform his behavior as a medical professional.
- His engagement with life writing exposed character flaws that undermined his professional reputation.
- The diary exemplifies a 'technology of self' but failed to produce a disciplined professional subject.

## Abstract

Robert Lee was a divisive figure who, for much of his professional life, mismanaged his reputation. In this article, I use a diary written between 1837 and 1873 to explore the part character played in Lee’s fraught relationship with the medical profession. Special attention is paid to Lee’s dual use of life writing. On the one hand, he was an avid reader of biographies, memoirs and obituaries, which he then recorded in his diary. On the other, his diary writing was designed to audit his behaviour and then transform his self, making him a disciplined medical professional. Presented like this, his diary bears the hallmarks of a Foucauldian ‘technology of self’. However, Lee’s dual engagement with life writing revealed the character flaws that did much to damage his professional standing, and despite the diary’s use as a tool for self-fashioning, an unruly professional subject emerged from its pages.