Syllabi: Literature and Medicine

INSTITUTION: Stanford University School of Medicine

COURSE DIRECTOR: Audrey Shafer, M.D. (email: ashafer@stanford.edu)

INSTRUCTORS: Stephen Arkin, Ph.D., La Vera Crawley, M.D., Phyllis Koestenbaum, Wendy Traber

ENROLLMENT: 1st and 2nd year students; elective

SEMESTER: Winter Quarter 1999

Thursday noon - 1:00 pm, January 7 - February 25

LOCATION: T-109, Health Research & Policy Bldg. (HRP)

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

1) The field of literature and medicine is introduced via this reading and discussion elective course designed for preclinical medical students. 2) Stories, poems, and essays about illness and health, the art of medicine, and the perspectives of patients and doctors are discussed to enhance our understanding of the patient-doctor relationship and moral and ethical issues imbedded in medical care.

COURSE OUTLINE

1. Introduction January 7     Shafer

course requirements
    participation in discussion
    reading assignments

goals of the course

resources on the web

uses of the discipline of literature and medicine:

    Jones, Anne Hudson. "Reading Patients - Cautions and Concerns" Literature and Medicine
    13(2):190-200, 1994. (and the 4 accompanying poems):

    Brooks, Gwendolyn. "The Mother" (poem) pp. 201-202.

    Dickey, James. "The Cancer Match" (poem) pp. 203-204.

    Dickey, James. "Diabetes" (poem) pp. 205-208.

    Walker, Alice. "Medicine" (poem) p. 209.

more on the patient's (and family's) point of view:

    Carver, Raymond. "What the Doctor Said" in A New Path to the Waterfall, p. 113.

    DeMaine, Mary R. "Six Days" poem in Life on the Line, ed. S. Walker & R. Roffman, pp.
    188-192.

    Hoagland, Tony. "Emigration" in Sweet Ruin, pp. 69-70.

    Schmidt, Stephen. "When You Come Into My Room" JAMA 276:512, Aug 21, 1996

    Monette, Paul. "Your Sightless Days" poem in Poets for Life: Seventy-Six Poets Respond to
    AIDS, pp. 167-168.

physician writers on literature and medicine:

    Williams, William Carlos. "Of Medicine and Poetry" part of The Autobiography of William
    Carlos Williams, pp 286-289.

    Selzer, Richard "The Exact Location of the Soul" essay in Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of
    Surgery, pp. 15-23.

2. How to Analyze a Poem January 14     Arkin

Donne, John. "The Flea" in The Norton Introduction to Literature, New York, 1973, p. 606.

Marvell, Andrew. "To His Coy Mistress" in The Norton Introduction to Literature, New York, 1973, p. 766.

Dickinson, Emily. "I heard a fly buzz when I died" in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. T. Johnson, pp. 223-224.

Olds, Sharon. "The Promise" poem in The New Yorker 66:80, 1990.

3. Technology and Interventions January 21     Shafer

Harper, Michael S. Interviewed by Bill Moyers in The Language of Life, pp. 180-185, 1995, includes "Nightmare Begins Responsibility."

Goedicke, Patricia. "One More Time" poem in Sutured Words, ed. Mukand, p. 221.

Selzer, Richard. Sarcophagus. In Confessions of a Knife. New York: Morrow, 1979, pp. 50-60. Story

Simmons, Dan. "The River Styx Runs Upstream" short story in Prayers to Broken Stones, pp.17-30.

4. Narrative Analysis January 28     Crawley

Walker, Alice. "Strong Horse Tea" in Trials, Tribulations, and Celebrations: African-American Perspectives on Health, Illness, Aging and Loss, ed. M.G. Secundy with L.L. Nixon, Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, 1992.

5. Special Lecture John Stone, M.D., Monday February 1, 5:10 p.m.
    Fairchild Bing Medical Humanities Lecture Series
    Note different time, day of week, and location from regular class

Stone, John. "Listening to the Patient" essay in In the Country of Hearts, pp. 65-71.

Stone, John. "Death" In All This Rain Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1980, p. 10, poem

6. Metaphor February 4    Shafer

Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. Metaphors We Live By. pp. 3-6, 14-21.

Sontag, Susan. Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. pp. 3-9, 104-108.

7. Art and Therapy February 11     Traber

8. Creative Writing February 18     Koestenbaum

Klass, Perri. excerpt from Baby Doctor, pp. xvi-xvii, 1992.

Klass, Perri. "Round and Round" in Baby Doctor, pp. 27-32.

Goldberg, Natalie. excerpt from Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life, pp. 1-5.

9. Summary February 25     Shafer

video: Illness as Experience and/or Rober Coles: Teacher

Course Evaluation