Summary:

Mrs. Wilson is a woman diagnosed with an advanced malignancy of the genital tract. Her husband had died from cancer ten years earlier. She is treated with a hysterectomy and oophorectomy along with aggressive chemotherapy by a good doctor who has no bedside manner.

Throughout the story her best friends are always medications to relieve pain: Dilaudid, morphine, Tylenol #3, and methadone. Only her son-in-law really understands her needs and comprehends how to care for her. He is genuine and vital and appears to know as much or more than the doctors in the story.

Mrs. Wilson acknowledges that "to maybe get well you first had to poison yourself within a whisker of death" but discovers that "if you had something to live for, if you loved life, you lived." She dies in a hospital room receiving an IV morphine drip. Before fading into oblivion, she recalls her youth and makes one last attempt at fathoming the meaning of life.

View full annotation

Summary:

Kirklin, a physician and Lecturer in Medical Humanities at the Royal Free and University College Medical School, and Richardson, a historian and associate at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, are both educators in medical humanities in London. This well-written and concise volume focuses on "the role of the humanities in medical education" and is aimed at "those wishing to integrate medical humanities into their own teaching, and learning." (p. xv) The chapters are written by a variety of educators with a wide range of backgrounds, including artist, medical student, writer, nurse, surgeon and philosopher.

At least two stimuli are cited as reasons for the development of this book: (1) the 1993 publication by the General Medical Council of Tomorrow's Doctors which recommends the inclusion of medical humanities in the required curriculum for undergraduate medical education in the UK and (2) a national conference, "The healing arts: The role of the humanities in medical education" in London, March, 2000. The rationale for such a book is delineated in several prefatory statements including remarks by Professors Sir David Weatherall and Sir K. George M. M. Alberti (Alberti is the president of the Royal College of Physicians). The book concludes with recommendations for further reading, schemata for undergraduate and graduate degrees in medical humanities at University of Wales, Swansea, and an index.

The nine chapters in this volume combine pedagogic philosophy, citations for literature and art and how to encourage reflection about these selections, tools for encouraging student creativity, reproductions of art and literature generated by students or patients or used by teachers for discussion, and some practical advice about teaching medical humanities and its, at times, uneasy connection to the rest of the curriculum. Each chapter reflects the individual contributor's area of expertise and experience. For example, in "Fostering the creativity of medical students", the authors Heather Allan, Michele Petrone (who painted the striking cover art), and Deborah Kirklin provide useful guides for teaching creative writing and art production by students studying cancer and genetic disease.

In a particularly insightful chapter, "Medical humanities for postgraduates: an integrated approach and its implications for teaching," Martyn Evans describes the challenges of developing a full-fledged interdisciplinary program for graduate as well as undergraduate studies in Wales. He addresses concerns about "bolt-on" versus integration of medical humanities in the curriculum, risks of superficiality, and how such studies may transform the culture of modern medicine. Several chapters address a theme (such as "clinical detachment" or understanding the patient's perspective) and include topic-specific sources and guidelines.

View full annotation

Summary:

Crossing Over presents "extended, richly detailed, multiperspectival case narratives" of 20 dying patients served by the Hospice of Lancaster County in Pennsylvania and the Palliative Care Service of Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. These complex narratives (each written by a single author) reveal the patient’s story from many points of view, including those of family members and professional caregivers.

The authors explain how this project differs from recent books of clinical narratives by Timothy Quill (A Midwife Through the Dying Process, 1996), Ira Byock (Dying Well: The Prospect of Growth at the End of Life, 1997), and Michael Kearney (Mortally Wounded. Stories of Soul Pain, Death and Healing, 1996 [see entry in this database]). Barnard et al. point out that Quill, Byock, and Kearney are "passionate advocates for their own styles of care . . . Yet these very characteristics--advocacy and close personal involvement--limit their books in important respects." (p. 5) Basically, these authors select cases that illustrate the efficacy of their models and present the patients’ stories from their own point of view.

Crossing Over draws on a standard qualitative methodology that includes tape-recorded interviews of patients, families, and health care professionals; chart reviews; and participant observation. After the introduction, the narratives occupy 374 pages of text (almost 19 pages per patient). Part II of the book, entitled "Working with the Narratives," includes a short chapter on research methods and 29 pages of "Authors’ Comments and Questions for Discussion." The latter is designed to be used as a teaching guide.

View full annotation

Summary:

In fourteenth century France, a 15 year old virgin, Blanche, levitates in church and nine months later gives birth to a daughter named Bonne. When Bonne is only 12 years old, Blanche is burned alive along with other "sinners" in a church. Bonne becomes a professional breast-feeder or "wet nurse." Her breast milk never stops flowing and seems to have restorative powers.

She finds herself catapulted from outcast to saint despite a series of catastrophes. When her town of Villeneuve is under siege and starving, she breast feeds not just children but many of the townspeople as well, asking only to listen to the individual's life story in exchange for her milk. Bonne's fate becomes deeply entangled with the lives of three friends: Godfridus (a chaste sculptor who goes mad), Hercules Legrand (a dwarf), and Radegonde Putemonnoie (a wealthy pregnant widow who hires Bonne).

View full annotation

Summary:

An elderly woman prepares for an announced visit from "officials" to honor the 90th birthday of her demented and bedridden husband, Bernat, once a major force in the scientific community of Communist controlled Hungary. As she flutters about the apartment, preparing to serve cakes and drinks to the anticipated visitors, the reader becomes acquainted with the unnamed protagonist's own concentration difficulty. She repeatedly lapses into remote recall, speaking fondly of an apparent former lover and occasionally sighing for Mommie or Daddy.

During the brief period of waiting, she unfolds bits and pieces of the life of the intellectually privileged and those not so lucky during the Communist regime, and her own regrets for dreams not realized. The reader does not meet the guests, but learns of the visit only through the eyes of Bernat's wife. The visits serves only to enhance her fears that the apartment may be taken, the little pension upon which the couple lives may be rescinded.

As the little vignette draws to a close, the wife enters the room of Bernat, who is obviously profoundly demented, but for whom she cares as one would care for a baby. The sadness of her lonely life dissolves into tears of resigned hopelessness.

View full annotation

Summary:

Adam and Seth Bede work as carpenters in the little village of Hayslope. Seth proposes to Dinah Morris, a gifted Methodist preacher, but she wants to devote herself to God's work. However, neither Dinah's faith nor her aunt Mrs. Poyser's sharp country truths can deflate the vain fancies of her pretty Hetty Sorrel (Mrs. Poyser's other niece). Although good Adam woos Hetty, she is distracted by the idle attentions of Captain Arthur Donnithorne, and when Adam finds out, he fights Arthur, who leaves town.

But when Hetty realizes she is pregnant, she runs away to see Arthur, only to find, arriving destitute after a difficult journey, that his regiment has been called away. Hetty restrains herself from suicide and gives birth in a lodging-house, then runs off with the infant and buries it in the brush, where it dies. After she is convicted for child-murder, Arthur finally hears the news, and Hetty's commuted sentence (transportation) saves her from the gallows. Two years later, Adam and Dinah realize they love each other, and they marry.

View full annotation

Summary:

In July 1998 the poet Maxine Kumin was thrown from her carriage when her horse bolted during a competition. The type of cervical (C1-C2) fracture that she sustained is fatal before reaching the hospital in 95% of cases, and if survived, usually results in quadriplegia. This book is a memoir written in the form of a journal that begins on the day of the accident. In fact, it was nearly a month after the accident that the poet's daughter brought writing materials to the rehab hospital, and Maxine began to dictate the journal, and the two of them filled in the temporal gaps.

The journal covers her experience in the acute care hospital, the rehab facility, and the following months of convalescence at home. It ends on April 23, 1999, when Maxine climbs a hill (unassisted) near her Vermont home, looks out over the early spring vista, and concludes, "I am letting myself believe I will heal."

The journal describes the poet's physical, emotional, and spiritual experiences as she struggles, first to survive, and then to live with the "halo vest" that for months she had to wear to stabilize her fractured neck bones, and finally to regain her function and equilibrium. Much of the story is about her family--husband, son, and daughters--who mobilize from various points around the world to support her. Comments about her doctors and the medical care she received constitute only a small, at times almost incidental, part of this narrative.

View full annotation

Summary:

Eva McEwen is born in Scotland in 1920. Her mother dies shortly after giving birth to her. At the age of six, Eva is "visited" by two strangers (an older woman and a teenage girl) that only she can see and hear. These mysterious companions steer the course of her life. During World War II, Eva serves as a nurse in a burn unit.

She falls in love with a plastic surgeon but her supernatural attendants have other plans for Eva. She secures a job as a school nurse, marries a teacher, and has a daughter. Sadly, Eva dies at a young age from cancer of the liver and pancreas. Thus the novel ends much like it began, with the tragic death of a young mother who leaves behind a devoted husband and daughter while ghostly visitors are poised to both share and meddle in the youngster's life.

View full annotation

Summary:

This varied collection of short stories and poems is unified not so much by theme as by their appropriateness to the intended listening audience--the bedridden or homebound elderly. In a brief but moving preface editor Carolyn Banks recalls her work in an adult day care center where she was expected to entertain those who were recovering from strokes or suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Reading aloud provided sometimes startling moments of contact with patients who were incapable of sustained conversation. Banks realized that while there are many story collections for children and general adult audiences, no one had done a collection for a group with these specific needs.

The collection includes 52 stories--one a week for a year--that cover a range of life situations. Not all focus on age or illness, though some do. In several a grandparent plays a crucial role in a grandchild's life. Some are set in the 1930's, 40's and 50's--periods likely to trigger memories for those now in their 70's and 80's.

Several stories focus on situations of widowhood and other losses, and some on death: Banks insists that death "is not a taboo topic." Many of the stories are comic, since, she comments, laughter is "an important response to court." All are short enough to read in a half hour or less, and "not insultingly simple."

View full annotation

Summary:

The first full-length collection of poetry by a Canadian medical social worker who cares for cancer patients and their families. The "longing" of the title expresses the human yearning for love, knowledge, completeness, and healing.

Many of these poems deal with the process of revealing the inner workings of the world (and the inner truth of persons) through photography; see "Darkroom: 1," in which, "I watched you emerge / take on form / and intensity." X-ray photography, of course, takes this one step further, allowing us to see the insides of bodies.

The long last section of the book includes 24 poems that deal explicitly with illness and health care. Among the best of these are "Worker Classification: Material Handler," "Hand to Mouth," "Wishbone," and a sequence of short poems called "Post-Mortem Report."

View full annotation