Literature and Medicine: A Practical and Pedagogical Guide

by Ronald Schleifer, Jerry B. Vannatta

Overview

Literature and Medicine: A Practical and Pedagogical Guide is designed to introduce narrative medicine in medical humanities courses aimed at pre-medicine undergraduates and medical and healthcare students. With excerpts from short stories, novels, memoirs, and poems, the book guides students on the basic methods and concepts of the study of narrative. The book helps healthcare professionals to build a set of skills and knowledge central to the practice of medicine including an understanding of professionalism, building the patient-physician relationship, ethics of medical practice, the logic of diagnosis, recognizing mistakes in medical practice, and diversity of experience. In addition to analyzing and considering the literary texts, each chapter includes a vignette taken from clinical situations to help define and illustrate the chapter’s theme. Literature and Medicine illustrates the ways that engagement with the humanities in general, and literature in particular, can create better and more fulfilled physicians and caretakers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030191276
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	10/10/2019
Edition description:	1st ed. 2019
Pages:	297
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Ronald Schleifer is George Lynn Cross Research Professor of English and Adjunct Professor in Medicine, University of Oklahoma, USA. He served as editor of Genre: Forms of Discourse and Theory and of Configurations. He has written or edited more than 20 books. His most recent books are Pain and Suffering (2014) and A Political Economy of Modernism (2018). He is the co-author of two text anthologies Contemporary Literature Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies and A Postmodern Bible Reader (2001).

Jerry Vannatta is David Ross Boyd Professor Emeritus of Internal Medicine and of Humanities in Medicine (MD, retired), and Adjunct Professor in the Honors College, University of Oklahoma, USA. He is currently Medical Director, Physician Assistant Program and Clinical Professor of Medical Humanities, Oklahoma City University, USA. He served as Vice President of the University of Oklahoma for Health Affairs and Executive Dean of the College of Medicine.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface: Goals of the Book, Audience and Background, How to Use this Book

Introduction to Literature and Medicine:

Part I: Literature Introduction: The Structure and Focus of the Chapters

Part II: Medicine Introduction: The Complexity of Clinical Medicine

Part One: Texts and Topics for Students

I. Narrative and Medicine

Chapter One: Narrative and Cognitive Science; Literature and Medicine.

Ø Vignette-discussion of an excerpt from My Own Country by Dr. Abraham

Verghese;

Ø Grace Paley, “A Conversation with My Father”

II. The Logic of Making a Diagnosis

Chapter Two: The Narrative Structure of Diagnosis.

Ø Vignette, “The Woman with Hyponatremia” (excerpt from The

Chief Concern);

Ø Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Resident Patient”;

Ø Associated poem, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 73: That Time of Year”

III. Professionalism

Chapter Three: Literature and Professionalism in Medicine.

Ø Vignette-discussion of an excerpt from “Playing God” by Dr. Michael

LaCombe;

Ø Dr. Richard Selzer, “Imelda”;

Ø Associated poem, Dr, Audrey Shafer, “Monday Morning”

IV. Building the Patient-Provider Relationship

Chapter Four: Rapport and Empathy in Medicine.

Ø Vignette, “An Elderly African-American Patient” (excerpt from The Chief

Concern);

Ø Dr. Anton Chekhov, “A Doctor’s Visit”;

Ø Associated poem, Dr. John Stone, “He Makes a House Call”

Chapter Five: Listening to Patients.

Ø Vignette, “Young Mother with Abdominal Pain” (excerpt from The Chief Concern);

Ø James Joyce, “Araby”;

Ø Associated poem, Dr. William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow”

Chapter Six: The Patient.

Ø Vignette, excerpt from The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde;

Ø Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”;

Ø Associated poem, Dr. Raphael Campo, “The Couple”

Chapter Seven: The Doctor.

Ø Vignette, excerpt from Black Man in a White Coat by Dr. Damon Tweedy;

Ø Vignette-discussion of an excerpt from “Diagnosis” by Dr. Michael LaCombe;

Ø Paul Laurence Dunbar, “The Lynching of Jube Benson”;

Ø Associated poem, Traditional Spiritual, “Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child”

V. Everyday Ethics of Medical Practices

Chapter Eight: Everyday Ethics of Medical Practices.

Ø Vignette, “The Patient with Diabetic Ketoacidosis” (excerpt from

The Chief Concern);

Ø Anton Chekhov, “Enemies”;

Ø Associated poem, William Blake, “A Poison Tree”

VI. Vicarious Experiences

Chapter Nine: Culture.

Ø Vignette, “The Patient’s Chief Concern” (excerpt from The Chief Concern);

Ø Demetria Martinez, “The Annunciation: Lupe”;

Ø Associated poem, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, “Making Tortillas”

Chapter Ten: Sexual and Domestic Abuse.

Ø Vignette, “You Don’t Deserve This” by Dr. Jerry Vannatta;

Ø Edgar Allan Poe, “Berenice”;

Ø Associated poem, W. B. Yeats, “Leda and the Swan”

Chapter Eleven: Pain.

Ø Vignette, excerpt from Inside Chronic Pain: An Intimate and Critical Account by

Lous Heshusius;

Ø Herman Melville, “The Operation” from White Jacket;

Ø Associated poem, Emily Dickinson, “Pain has an Element of Blank”

Chapter Twelve: Ageing.

Ø Vignette, “Treating a Very Old Woman” by Dr. Jerry Vannatta;

Ø Nathaniel Hawthorne, a chapter from House of Seven Gables;

Ø Associated poem, Thomas Hardy, “I Look into my Glass”

VII. Mistakes in Medicine

Chapter Thirteen: Mistakes in Medicine.

Ø Vignette, “Mistake” by Dr. Jerry Vannatta;

Ø Gustav Flaubert, a chapter from Madame Bovary;

Ø Associated poem, Dr, Dannie Abse, “In the Theatre”

VIII. Death and Dying

Chapter Fourteen: Death and Dying.  

Ø Vignette, “The Good Death” by Dr. Jerry Vannatta;

Ø Vignette, “Frenzy Facing Death” by Dr. Jerry Vannatta;

Ø Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych;

Ø Associated poem, John Donne, “Death Be Not Proud”

IX. Postscript: The Fulfillments of Healthcare

Chapter Fifteen: Afterword

Ø Associated poem, Derek Mahon, “Everything is Going to be All Right”

Part Two: Appendices

Appendix 1: Experimental Results: The Cognitive Science of Literary Reading

Appendix 2: Discussion Questions for the Chapters

Appendix 3: Questions for Daily Writing

Appendix 4: Guide for Discussing Diagnosis and Diagnosis Errors (Chapter 2)

Appendix 5: Casey Hester, MD., Jerry Vannatta, MD, and Ronald Schleifer, PhD, “Medical Professionalism: Using Literary Narrative to Explore and Evaluate Medical Professionalism,” an essay which includes “the Elements of Genres of Narrative” (Chapter 3)

Appendix 6: Ronald Schleifer and Jerry Vannatta, “Teaching Hemingway to Medical Students” (Chapter 5)