Transcript
Getting the News from Poetry
Dean Gianakos, MD
Lynchburg Family Medicine Residency
November 10, 2010
Barn burned down. Barn burned down. Now we can see the Now we can see the moon.moon.
Basho 1644-94Basho 1644-94
Objectives
Make connections between literature and medicine
Deepen our understanding of the experience of illness
Learn how stories can help us to understand ethical dilemmas in medicine
Today:
Reading patients, reading poetry Reading patients, reading stories
Main Goal
Have fun!
It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.
“That is why as a writer I have never felt that medicine interfered with me but rather that it made it possible for me to write. Was I not interested in man? There the thing was, right in front of me. I could touch it, smell it. It was myself, naked just as it was, without a lie telling itself to me in its own terms.”
The experience of illness
The Sick Wife
The Poor
By constantly tormenting them
with reminders of the lice in
their children’s hair, the
School Physician first
brought their hatred down on him.
But by this familiarity
they grew used to him, and so,
at last,
took him for their friend and advisor.
The Use of Force
Framework for resolving ethical dilemmas
Medical facts Patient values Quality of life Cost, other considerations
Ethical Principles
Beneficence Autonomy Justice
What the Doctor Said
Reading Patients, Reading Poetry
Analysis and presence The part and whole Language Looking for meaning Individual interpretation versus universal
one
Reading Patients, Reading Poetry
Meaning evolves as story unfolds Detachment and empathy Listening Tolerating ambiguity Art and technique
Reading patients, reading poetry: differences
Greater urgency Face to face Greater need for certainty Need to make a decision
Why do doctors read poetry?
Some of them think it’s fun! Doesn’t necessarily make better doctors Sharpen skills: language, observation,
empathy Expands world of feeling, language, and
meaning
I was a late bloomer. But anyone who blooms at all, ever, is very lucky.
Sharon Olds
Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.
Picasso
Poem: "Philosophy" by Daniel Hoffman
In sophomore year the great philosopher,Then ninety, out of retirement came, to passHis wisdom on to one more generation.Reading his last lecture to our class,
That afternoon the mote-filled sunlight leanedAttentively with purpose through the tallWindows in amber buttresses that seemedTo gird the heavens so they wouldn't fall.
The blaze of his white mane, his hooded eyes,The voice that plumbed us from reflection's skiesSo far above temptation or reward—
The scene has never left my mind. I wroteHis lecture down, but, in an old trunk, my notesHave crumbled, and I can't recall a word.
top related