Syllabi: Medical Humanities Elective II

INSTITUTION: University of California, Irvine.

INSTRUCTOR: Johanna Shapiro, Ph.D., Director of Medical Humanities in Family Medicine, email: jfshapiro@msx.ndc.mc.uci.edu

ENROLLMENT: 2nd year medical students; elective; limit: 10

SEMESTER: Spring 2000

ELECTIVE LINK: This course is a medical humanities second year elective which is thematically linked to the Medical Humanities in Patient - Doctor II course.

DESCRIPTION: This elective is thematically linked to Patient-Doctor II in that its content closely parallels that of the larger course and meetings occur monthly after each final module session of PDII. The class is intended to supplement exposure to the medical humanities for students with a particular interest in this area. Readings consist of poetry and brief excerpts from longer works that will help participants deepen their understanding of patients' experience of illness, and patients' and doctors' experience of each other.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

At the end of this elective, students will

• Develop increased empathy for people experiencing illness
• Develop increased empathy for physicians
• Improve their ability to pay attention to language, tone, and point of view
• Be better able to explore personal feelings evoked by different illness experiences and different doctor-patient relationships
• Develop new insights into understanding doctor-patient dynamics

FORMAT:

Students meet monthly with faculty for a total of eight sessions 1 - hours in length to discuss readings. No outside reading is required. Typically, a role-play, an excerpt from a short story, or poetry is read aloud. A discussion guide is provided to stimulate comments if necessary.

READING:

Module 1 : "An Unquiet Mind" Kay Redfield Jamison; "Therapy" John Wright; "The Legacy" Judith Minty; "The Bell Jar" Sylvia Plath

Module 2 : "Epstein" Philip Roth; "The Senescent Heart" Michael Gravanis; "Intensive Care" Diane Ackerman; "The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart" Margaret Atwood

Module 3 : "The Cancer Match" James Dickey; "Here and There" Helene Davis; "What the Doctor Said" Raymond Carver; "Chemotherapy" Aimee Grunberger;

Module 4 : "AIDS Test" Ellen Samuels; "How To Watch Your Brother Die" Michael Klein; "F.P." Rafael Campo; "Gay Men's Chorus" Paula Tatrunis; "H.I. Vato" Alberto Aontonio Araiza

Module 5 : "Two Suffering Men" Eugene Hirsch; "She Was My Mother Bless Her Soul" Jane, ACA; "The Power of Inclination" Jack Coulehan; "The Spirits Funnel" Mladen Seidl

Module 6 : "Children Like These" Lorrie Moore; "Fathering" Bharati Mukherjee; "Sugar" Barbara Anderson; "How To Win" Rosellen Brown

Module 7 : "Sal doesn't shake" Richard Donze; "Spastics" Vassar Miller; "Stroke" Susan Rea; "Love for the Dog" Gerald Stern

Module 8 : "Lousy on Admission" Michael Crichton; "Aging Gratefully" John Graham-Pole; "Forsythia" James Sedwick; "Nursing Home" Barry Spacks

EVALUATION:

A class evaluation is completed at the end of the year. In addition to assessing faculty knowledge, commitment, and performance, the evaluation asks students to estimate to what extent the elective has increased their ability to empathize with patients; improved their ability to understand language, tone, and point of view; helped them to imaginatively recreate the lives of patients; and helped them to locate disease within the context of the patient's life.