Syllabi: Perception and Medicine

INSTITUTION: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine

PRESENTER: Professor Richard C. Mitchell; Department of Art; Youngstown State University, 410 Wick Avenue, Youngstown OH 44455; OFFICE PHONE: (330)742-3775; HOME PHONE/FAX: (330)426-2620; E-MAIL: rcmitche@cc.ysu.edu

PROGRAM DIRECTOR: Martin Kohn, Ph.D., Director of the Human Values in Medicine Program (email: mfk@neoucom.EDU)

ENROLLMENT: BS/MD; selective; limit: 12

SEMESTER: Spring 2000
April 18, 20, 25, 27, May 2, 4, 9, 11 (Tuesday/Thursday mornings 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.)

LEARNING GOALS: What do medicine and art have in common? Why do physicians serve on the boards of museums, symphonies, and community theaters? Why do medical students write poetry? Why do physicians seek answers to healing in forms other than the traditional biomedical model? What messages are there out there in traditional and popular art for both the doctor and the artist?

METHOD OF INSTRUCTION: Perception and Medicine consists of a seminar environment wherein presentations will examine and discuss the language of art, science, and medicine. Traditional and popular cultural expressions will be used to examine the role of art and medicine in contemporary culture. Films like 2001, L.A. Story, Phenomenon, and Defending your Life reveal concepts and ideas essential to our full experience of being human.

The course will explore the contribution of traditional and modern visula artists, along with the wrok of physicians such as Deepak Chopra, James AS. Gordon, Larry Dossey, and Sherwin B. Nuland. Each class will involve a variety of presentation modes - discussion, audio and video tapes, slides and music - as learning experiences.

Materials presented in class and assigned for homework will require that the student take notes/observations and construct a personal journal of critical response. Homework assignments involving site visitations and other activities will take a minimum of 8 hours per week outside of class time. Home work assignments are to be clearly identified on each pate, typed (or clearly written) and turned in for review at designated class sessions. A complete copy of all journal materials is to be presented to the instructor at the last class session.

Students will need access to a VCR and an audio tape player to review specific homework assignments. " Medicine is the science and art of healing. Medicine is a science because it is based on knkowledge gained through careful study and experimentation. It is an art because it depends on how skillfully doctors and other medical workers apply this knowledge when dealing with patients."

While science deals with fixed characteristics of being - things like gravity and blood pressure - art deals with the feelings about the facts.

REQUIREMENTS: Students are required to:

1. *One week before the first session, write and mail (via e-mail, regular mail, or fax) to the instructor a brief autobiography (minimum 3 pages) answering the following questions (your fax number and/or e-mail address is to be included):

a. What specific factors influenced your choice for a medical career?

b. What is your specialty in medicine?

c. Where are you going to do your residency?

d. Who are your personal heroes? How have they directly affected your life?

e. What experience have you had with any of the arts?

f. What experience have you had with Mind/Body and Alternative Healing Therapies?

These autobiographies are to be received by the instructor no later than April 16, 1999.

2. Attend all scheduled meetings, read, view, outline, and complete all the assigned homework.

3. Participate actively and openly in class discussions.

4. Keep a journal that coalesces all the course material into a legible record of the course, its activities, and the impact of the course on the personal experiences and beliefs of the student.

READING LIST: Readings will be distributed in class as will questions to be explored from homework assignments and for class discussion.