Syllabi: Literature and Medicine: What Is So Good About Getting Old?

INSTITUTION: University of California at Berkeley

PROGRAM DIRECTOR: Guy Micco, M.D., Director of UCB Center for Medicine, the Humanities, and Law (email: guym@socrates.berkeley.edu)

ENROLLMENT: Students from the Joint Medical Program and graduate students; elective; limite:10

SEMESTER: Fall 1998

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

At some point in most lives, getting old(er) is dreaded; for, in our culture, aging is equated with deterioration, disability, disease -- and then you die. Medicine buys into this attitude -- old age is surely a disease awaiting a cure. At the very least we are taught in medical training to postpone the inevitable, extend middle age indefinitely and without disability until (as the popular metaphor would have it) the previously-healthy, one-hoss shay just suddenly falls apart.

Not long ago I asked some of my medical colleagues to tell me the first thing that came to their minds when I said "old age". Not surprisingly each one came up with a "negative" notion: sick; illness; disability; multiple medical problems; arthritis; backaches; broken hips; decreased functioning; physical infirmity; senility; memory loss; Alzheimer's; a slowing down of everything; depression; not able to care for oneself anymore; fear of illness; social isolation. We have pathologized aging and old age. Of course it is not just the doctors; few of my patients have anything good to say about it. (The most common comment I have heard from my old patients is: "It's no fun getting old.")

Indeed the older we get, the greater the chance of illness and disability. Yet, as we grow older, may we not also grow in understanding? (Is "wisdom" too big a word to use here?) Doesn't old age also promise to be a time of increased practical knowledge of life, of heightened self-awareness and understanding; a time when the meanings of life, suffering, and death become more focused and understandable; a time of forgiveness; perhaps even a time of equanimity and peace.

Simply put, I believe we need to balance the "negative" views of old age and aging with some of the "positives". Young people, especially physicians-to-be, ought to be exposed to non-pejorative stories of and by old people.

The goal of this course is to help students, course instructor, and guest faculty to investigate their own personal and cultural "negative" attitudes toward aging and old age. We will try to balance these with positive views as expressed through literature, stories of the lives of old people, and artistic representations of old age. There will also be three evenings (optional) scheduled to view films on the topic.

COURSE OUTLINE:

Readings:

Letty Cottin Pogrebin, "Honey, What's Your Name Again?"

Guest: Marjorie Shultz, Professor of Law, UCB Boalt School of Law

Readings: Betty Friedan, The Fountain of Age, chapters 2 and 18

Readings:

September 25:

Guest: Thomas Laqueur, Professor of History, UCB

Readings: tba

Guest: Christina Gillis, Associate Director, Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities

Reading: Michael Ignatieff, Scar Tissue

Guest: Professor David Biale, Director, Center for Jewish Studies, Graduate Theological Union

Readings: tba

Guest: John Swartzberg, MD, Clinical Professor, Health and Medical Sciences

Readings:

Guest: Carol Christ, Professor of English and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, UCB

Readings:

May Sarton, "At Seventy: A Journal" (selections)

October 30: Open

Guest: Henrik Blum, MD, Emeritus Professor

Reading: Malcolm Cowley, The View from 80

Guest: Anna Davidson, medical student, UCB-UCSF Joint Medical Program

Readings: tba

November 20: Open

November 27: Thanksgiving break

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

Weekly readings and discussions based on these readings. In addition, each student will be expected to write a one-half to one-page reflection on each week's reading prior to that week's class time.

For a letter grade there will be a 10 page paper due by the last week of November.

* A "reflection" is not meant to be a polished piece of w�riting; rather, it may be written within 15 minutes of intense concentration

Required reading:

1. The Course Reader (available at Copy Central at Shattuck and University

2. A Heart of Wisdom: Making the Jewish Journey from Midlife Through the Elder Years, Susan Berrin, editor (available at Livinglinks Health Media, 21Ù2 Oxford)

3. Scar Tissue, Michael Ignatieff (also available at Livinglinks)