flower arrangements, literature and medicine
I am an official businesswoman. I have a web site to show off my flower arrangements: hsquier.tripod.com , have an official tax ID number, and yesterday sold three flower arrangements. Yeah! Hopefully, I'll be able to participate in the Meridian Artisan's Market this summer. In the meantime, I'm dodging Y's wrath at the "mess" I make. Perhaps he's suspicious of the time I spend doing flowers that isn't spent doing the things he wants me to do! But I LOVE the flowers. Even though they aren't real, they are so beautiful. I love how they turn heads when I deliver them. I love how they are so delicate and glorious and exuberant. I love their colors, their life. I love how alive I feel when I'm putting them together.
Otherwise, I'm putting together a poetry-based death and dying curriculum. Sounds morbid, after those great flowers, doesn't it? But these poems are trying to make sense of life, as they try to make sense of death. I do need some essays to balance them, though. Even I can get too much of poetry. Fun having an excuse to do so much reading.
Best of the bunch: Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry edited by Billy Collins
A Broken Heart Still Beats: After Your Child Dies edited by Anne McCracken
Intensive Care: More Poetry and Prose by Nurses edited by Cortney Davis
Body Language: Poems of the Medical Training Experience edited by Neeta Jain et al.
What I Learned in Medical School: Personal Stories of Young Doctors edited by Kevin Takakuwa, et al.
I'm changing the way the class is structured and taught. First, I want the students to get a voice; the main benefit of the humanities in medicine is to help the students feel human, to retain their humanity. And isn't that what we really want from doctors? Not a sense of dominance and automation, but a sense that they are listening, connecting, caring, and then applying what they know to us in particular.
So the class starts with the student's perspective on death and dying. It starts with their fears about seeing patients, their fears about making mistakes, of missing diagnoses, of causing harm, of feeling incompetent, inadequate, alone, and terrified. Notice how these last fears sound a lot like what we, as patients, might feel? In acknowledging these fears, and sharing them in a safe place, the students can find connection, permission to be human, permission to be imperfect. Only then can they move on to productive conversation about a patient's experiences. Only then can they appreciate how their emotions can affect their ability to care.
Well, enough lecture. Back to the course pack. I'm hoping to put together a literature and medicine course design website. I'll keep you updated.
Otherwise, I'm putting together a poetry-based death and dying curriculum. Sounds morbid, after those great flowers, doesn't it? But these poems are trying to make sense of life, as they try to make sense of death. I do need some essays to balance them, though. Even I can get too much of poetry. Fun having an excuse to do so much reading.
Best of the bunch: Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry edited by Billy Collins
A Broken Heart Still Beats: After Your Child Dies edited by Anne McCracken
Intensive Care: More Poetry and Prose by Nurses edited by Cortney Davis
Body Language: Poems of the Medical Training Experience edited by Neeta Jain et al.
What I Learned in Medical School: Personal Stories of Young Doctors edited by Kevin Takakuwa, et al.
I'm changing the way the class is structured and taught. First, I want the students to get a voice; the main benefit of the humanities in medicine is to help the students feel human, to retain their humanity. And isn't that what we really want from doctors? Not a sense of dominance and automation, but a sense that they are listening, connecting, caring, and then applying what they know to us in particular.
So the class starts with the student's perspective on death and dying. It starts with their fears about seeing patients, their fears about making mistakes, of missing diagnoses, of causing harm, of feeling incompetent, inadequate, alone, and terrified. Notice how these last fears sound a lot like what we, as patients, might feel? In acknowledging these fears, and sharing them in a safe place, the students can find connection, permission to be human, permission to be imperfect. Only then can they move on to productive conversation about a patient's experiences. Only then can they appreciate how their emotions can affect their ability to care.
Well, enough lecture. Back to the course pack. I'm hoping to put together a literature and medicine course design website. I'll keep you updated.
posted by HS at 2/21/2007 11:46:00 AM
0 comments
