2007 Physicians Literature and Medicine Schedule

January 3

…During a portion of the first half of the present century, and more particularly during the latter part of it, there flourished and practiced in the city of New York a physician who enjoyed perhaps an exceptional share of the consideration which, in the United States, has always been bestowed upon distinguished members of the medical profession.  This profession in America has constantly been held in honor, and more successfully than elsewhere has put forth a claim to the epithet of “liberal”.  In a country in which, to play a social part, you must either earn your income or make believe that you earn it, the healing art has appeared in a high degree to combine two recognized sources of credit.                 -Washington Square 

March 7

Book: Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy    
Facilitator: Susan Sample

Susan Sample writes: Lucy Grealy’s beautifully written memoir is an insightful recollection of growing up as a patient, in which she explores with humor and grace how her twenty-years experience inside and outside hospitals shaped her life. At age nine, the self-described "tomboy par excellence" was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma. By age sixteen--after four operations to remove half of her jaw, two years of chemotherapy, and two years of dental work to repair the side effects of radiation—she began the first of countless reconstructive surgeries. As one might expect, the hospital was her refuge, the only place where she wasn’t self-conscious about her disfigurement, feeling isolated from others by her ugliness.

In our discussion of Autobiography of a Face, we’ll consider how doctors and nurses who literally reshaped her face contributed not only to her self-image, but her larger quest to understand truth and beauty, and the meaning of suffering. It may be particularly interesting to contrast early chapters ("Petting Zoo" and "Fear Itself") with those from her later years ("Cool" and "Mirroring") in terms of imagery, narrative, and language.

April 4

Literature: The Sea and Poison by Shusaku Endo
Facilitator: Therese Jones

The novel, The Sea and Poison, won the Akutagawa Prize when it was published in Japan in 1958, establishing its author, Shusuako Endo, at the forefront of modern Japanese literature. 

The story, set in a hospital in a Japan ravaged and demoralized by Allied air attacks, concerns Suguro and Toda, two surgical interns who are co-opted by an ambitious senior surgeon who is conducting medical experiments on captured American prisoners.

The psychological motivations and interior deliberations of the two interns as well as a nurse are explored in depth and provide moral and emotional tension.  The fragmented structure is characteristically modern with flashbacks within flashbacks, and the theme is that of a prevailing moral deprivation that is imaged in war, sickness, hunger and nihilism in the face of certain defeat by the Allies. This is a book about the killing of patients:  humans who are helpless and who are expecting care.  The justification is that they will die anyway, so their deaths might as well serve the interests of medical knowledge and the development of surgical techniques.

 June 6

 July 11

Book: Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
Facilitator: Rachel Borup
Mountains Beyond Mountains is Tracy Kidder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Dr. Paul Farmer, a founder of Partners in Health and passionate advocate for the world’s poor. Farmer’s combined training in medicine and anthropology gives him a unique perspective on the links between disease, poverty, and global politics. He is tireless in his mission to solve inequality wherever he finds it, as seen in Kidder’s gripping accounts of Farmer’s work across the globe, from Haiti to Peru to Russia. Since its publication in 2004 many readers have found this book inspirational. We’ll discuss both Farmer’s work and Kidder’s literary depiction of it.
Some of you may recall meeting or hearing the truly remarkable Dr. Farmer when he was here as a Tanner Lecturer two years ago.

 August 1

Since its publication in 1978, Samuel Shem’s The House of God has sold over two million copies in over fifty countries.  Contemporary medical vernacular is replete with words and phrases from the novel (“GOMERS,” “TURF,” “LOLNAD,” “CROCK”), and simply uttering one of them or referring to the book’s title is now shorthand for the grueling, dehumanizing nature of resident education or the disrespectful, degrading treatment of the elderly or the disastrous, clumsy end-of-life practices in hospitals. 

There have been frequent attempts to discredit both the author and the novel since it appeared in print, and it continues to evoke strong feelings.  Shem has always resisted the label, “satire,” because it implies a departure from reality, and he maintains that the events, although sometimes exaggerated, really happened.  He argues that the book was and is controversial because it tells the truth.  Most of the “laws” of the House of God are grossly unprofessional as well as horribly unethical.   

But are they outdated?  Writer John Updike who supplied a 1995 introduction to the novel doesn’t think so.  While acknowledging that many changes in medicine have been made since 1978, the book’s concerns are “more timely than ever, as the American healthcare system approaches crisis condition—ever more overused, overworked, expensive, and beset by bad publicity.”  Updike could easily be writing the blurb for Michael Moore’s just-released documentary, Sicko! 

 September 5

 October 3

Book: In the Country of Hearts by John Stone
Facilitator: Susan Sample
John Stone, M.D., guides us through geography he knows well in his collection of essays, In the Country of Hearts: Journeys in the Art of Medicine. The retired cardiologist from Emory University School of Medicine takes us into hospital rooms, operating rooms, even the historic Old St. Thomas Hospital in London. Although physicians need no introductions to these areas, Stone offers a unique perspective, infusing medicine with his deep appreciation for history, literature, art, and music. We, too, can envision the 13-year-old girl, diagnosed with coarctation, as "a painting in progress, a Monet perhaps." Whether he’s referencing Greek mythology or explaining intricacies of catheterization, Stone’s compassionate tone ensures that the patient remains at the heart of each chapter, imbuing the book with timeless messages. We’ll begin our discussion by considering which chapters capture the intensity that Stone, co-editor of the anthology On Doctoring, describes: when "both the eye and the brain can be startled, even the conditioned, inured ones of the physician."

 November 7

Book: The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
Facilitator: Rachel Borup
Through many novels including Operation Wandering Soul and The Gold Bug Variations, Richard Powers has gained the admiration of many readers for expertly weaving science and medicine into his characters’ lives.  His latest book, The Echo Maker, won the National Book Award in 2006 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.  In it, Powers follows the lives of a young man suffering from Capgras syndrome after a traumatic brain injury, the sister he no longer recognizes, and the famous neurologist who would treat him.  Along the way, Powers’ story probes the mysteries of consciousness and memory, and asks us all to think about what makes us, us.

Copies of The Echo Maker are available at the Kings English Bookstore: 1511 South. 1500 East, 484-9100 and also at the Health Sciences Book Store at the University of Utah, 581-3755

 December 5