2009 Physicians Literature and Medicine Schedule
A light dinner will be served at 6:15 p.m.
Discussion begins at 6:30 p.m.
The meetings are held at:
- LDS Hospital, Amicus Board Room
Call 801-581-7170 for more detailed directions.
The books are available at The King's English Bookstore and at the University of Utah Health Sciences Bookstore, 581-3755.
The King's English offers a 10% discount to book club members.
| December |
LDSH Amicus Boardroom |
Book: The Secret Scripture, by Sebastian Barry Facilitator: Aden Ross, PhD Aden Ross, PhD, writes: "Short-listed for the 2009 Booker Prize, The Secret Scripture, by Sebastian Barry, is a treat to read on all levels--for its perceptive psychology, its stark history, its endearing characters, its surprising plot twists, and its stunningly beautiful style. Roseanne Clear is a 100-year-old Irish woman who has been confined to an insane asylum for decades on end and who is scribbling her story on scavenged paper. Dr. William Grene, the senior psychiatrist at the asylum, must decide which patients will move to a new institution and which ones will be set free, all the while writing his own journal. The novel turns on the complex, mysterious rapport between the doctor and the patient, on Dr. Grene's attempts to understand both Roseanne and himself and on her remarkable happiness in spite of a life spanning a century of "mad Ireland's" vicious and heartbreaking history. For both, personal fate and national fate are intimately bound, as are their two narratives. The novel poses important questions, such as who determines who is "sane," especially in the midst of relentless public war and private revenge? Who determines what is "right," especially between a brutal Catholic ethic and an equally violent Protestant one? What kind of physician is Dr. Grene? Given what has happened to Roseanne, how can she possibly be happy? Most important, what is the "secret scripture" behind the narratives in this novel?" |
| November selection is cancelled | ||
| October 14 | LDSH Amicus Boardroom | Book: Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw Facilitator: Mark Matheson, D. Phil Our facilitator, Mark Matheson, writes: “We know George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (1914) as the source of “My Fair Lady,” one of the most popular musicals of the twentieth century. The play is built on the ancient myth of the Pygmalion, a sculptor who carves a statue of a beautiful woman – and then proceeds to fall in love with it. Henry Higgins is the Pygmalion of the play, as he teaches manners and upper-class speech to Eliza Doolittle, a common flower girl. The charged relationship between them, in which a wealthy and learned man attempts to transform an indigent and uneducated young woman, is the heart of the play. The asymmetry of power between these two characters is patent, and in this respect it’s not unlike many relationships in the world of health care. Higgins speaks of the project as an “experiment,” and the morality of his actions is openly questioned in the play. The text puts forward some wonderfully provocative topics for our discussion: early twentieth-century feminism, the class and social functions of language, “middle-class morality,” male narcissism, and the dynamics of marriage. Eliza – famously – does not marry Prof. Higgins at the end of the play. In his preface, Bernard Shaw refers to Pygmalion as a thoroughly didactic work, and we might consider the lessons it teaches. But the play is not only didactic, and I look forward to discussing its rich and sympathetic analysis of the evolving relationship between Eliza and Higgins.” |
| September 15 | LDSH Pugh Boardroom | Book: Inside the Halo, by Maxine Kumin Facilitator: Susan Sample, MFA Susan Sample, writes: “The title Maxine Kumin selected for her memoir and the word she chose to describe her survival—“a miracle”—might suggest an inspirational account of how the then seventy-three-year-old triumphed over an accident suffered while training for a horse competition. But the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet is neither sentimentalist nor confessional; her work is acclaimed for its unflinching observations of human frailty and the natural world, especially the New Hampshire farm where she lives with her husband. Loss and survival are predominant themes she explores with honesty and strength. Her memoir is no exception. One reviewer in the New York Times Book Review noted that it “is rarely poetic in the usual sense of heightened metaphor or compacted image.” While Inside the Halo and Beyond might not be considered transcendental, it is arguably transformative for the writer as well as for readers. Does that include physicians and health-care professionals? A good place to begin our discussion may be section three in which Kumin details interactions with numerous specialists and the language they use. To round out our discussion, we’ll read several poems she wrote during recovery to compare and contrast with her memoir. |
| August 12 | LDSH Amicus Boardroom |
Book: An experiment in reader's theatre with 2 short plays (no prior reading required): "Indian Health Service" by Aden Ross and "Imelda" by Richard Selzer Using a readers' theater format, we will perform and discuss two short plays. The first, "Indian Health Service," is a play Aden Ross wrote a few years ago which was published and produced in several settings, including one for U of U medical students. Jay Jacobson will portray an Anglo doctor his own age, and Aden Ross will play a Ute woman elder who is very ill. The second play, "Imelda," is a short story by Richard Selzer adapted to readers' theater. For this piece, Aden will ask for volunteers to read the roles and will distribute scripts at the time. |
| July 8 | LDSH Amicus Boardroom |
Book: Equus, by Peter Shaffer Our facilitator, Aden Ross, PhD, writes: ""Equus," by Peter Shaffer, dramatizes the journey of a compassionate psychiatrist and his 17-year-old patient, a stable boy who has plunged a steel spike into the eyes of six horses. Based on an actual event, this incomprehensible crime prompted Shaffer to explore issues ranging from medicine to religion to sexuality, as well as their interrelationships. |
|
June 10 |
LDSH Amicus Boardroom |
Book: The Sexual Politics of Sickness, by Barbara Ehrenreich Our facilitator, Mark Matheson, PhD, writes: “In "Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness," Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English offer a feminist critique of the medical profession. The date of publication was 1973, but the text is not simply a future-looking political manifesto. In fact the authors devote most of the work to a history of how medicine treated women during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They assert that during this period sexist gender ideology was often imposed under the guise of science, and medicine generally played a debilitating and reactionary role in women's lives. Their analysis is as sensitive to issues of social class as it is to gender, and they claim that medicine "constructed" rich and poor women in substantially different ways. After completing their historical survey, Ehrenreich and English offer their judgment that the deep ideological drives of medicine had not greatly changed by 1973, though the emphasis had shifted from identifying women as prone to physical invalidism to seeing them as given to mental illness. The authors conclude with a call for more power for women in making decisions about their own bodies--and in the political process that affects their options and their capacity to make these decisions. |
|
May 13 |
LDSH Amicus Boardroom |
Book: Life in the Balance: A Physician’s Memoir of Life, Love and Loss with Parkinson’s Disease and Dementia, by Thomas Graboys and Peter Zheutin Our facilitator, Susan Sample, writes: “Boston physician Thomas Graboys was at the peak of his career--director of the Lown Cardiovascular Center and clinical professor at Harvard Medical School—when, at age 58, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Lewy body dementia. Unlike many illness memoirs that follow a chronological narrative, each chapter in Graboys’ is a rumination on issues he has confronted and continues to on a daily basis: the denial and discomfort of colleagues as they react to his disability; the public persona of disease and performance he feels he must stage among social friends; the impact of a chronic progressive disease on the emotional and physical landscape of his second marriage; the pros and cons of assisted suicide; and the essence of the doctor-patient relationship, among others. Ultimately, Graboys’ memoir is an unflinching yet inspiring guide for patients, their families, and physicians on how to live with hope. As a physician-reviewer noted in The New York Times, “This is the kind of book inevitably given to medical students to inoculate them in the humanistic dimensions of medicine. I wouldn’t waste it on them. Save it for older doctors, still at the top of their game, gleaming and self-confident. Each of them could use this textbook of the graceful and courageous exit.” |
| March 11 | LDSH Classrooms A,B,C |
Book: The March by EL Doctorow |
|
February 11
|
LDSH Amicus Boardroom |
Book: The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti Hannah Tinti's The Good Thief is a gothic adventure novel about a one-handed orphan boy who is "adopted" by a conman who puts the boy's disability to all kinds of nefarious uses. The story is set in hard-scrabble nineteenth-century New England and Tinti's style may remind readers of older authors like Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. Medical professionals will be fascinated (and horrified) by the story's depiction of the nineteenth-century "resurrection" trade wherein thieves exhumed recently buried bodies and delivered them in dark of night to teaching hospitals in exchange for great sums of money. Despite all the gore and black humor, this is a heart-warming story with a loveable character at the center. |
|
January 14
|
LDSH Amicus Boardroom | Book:The Tempest by William Shakespeare Faciltator: Mark Matheson, D.Phil This year we'll be considering a variety of texts that deal with the theme of power. To introduce this series of readings we'll begin with Shakespeare's "The Tempest," which is one of his very last plays. In it he seems to reflect on many of the great subjects that had preoccupied him as a playwright: monarchy, usurpation, revenge, forgiveness, the life of the spirit, and the mystery of love. In the play Prospero, the usurped duke of Milan and a Renaissance magus or magician, uses his magical powers to bring his enemies to his mercy. Recent readers of the play have focussed on the relationship between Prospero and Caliban, who was the only inhabitant of the island on which Prospero and his daughter were exiled twelve years before the play begins. Shakespeare wrote the play at a time when European powers were beginning to spread their colonial dominion across the globe, and the Prospero-Caliban relationship in the play's world bears a clear resemblance to that between contemporary European colonizers and colonized peoples in other countries. This and other power relationships--familial, governmental, personal--are explored with great subtlety in the play. You might pay special attention to Prospero's famous "revels" speech (4.1.146-63), which is often quoted by itself but which we have the opportunity to read in the context of the play as a whole. Consider also Prospero's renunciation of his magical powers in act 5--perhaps the most mysterious and significant action in the play. The epilogue spoken by Prospero continues the drama's sustained engagement with issues of power, bondage, freedom, and forgiveness. If we read it as embodying a wisdom precipitated through the play's conflicts, how might we interpret the sum of this wisdom? |
Physician Literature and Medicine Group
Amicus Boardroom, LDS Hospital
2009 Discussion Schedule
|
January |
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. Literature: The Tempest, William Shakespeare Facilitator: Mark Matheson, D.Phil |
|
February |
Wednesday, February, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. Literature: The Good Thief, Hannah Tinti Facilitator: Rachel Borup, PhD |
|
March |
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. Literature: The March,E.L. Doctorow Facilitator: Aden Ross, PhD **Location Exception: LDS Hospital Classroom A, B & C. |
|
April |
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. Literature: A Mercy,Toni Morrison Facilitator: Rachel Borup, PhD |
|
May |
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. Literature: Life in the Balance: A Physician’s Memoir of Life, Love and Loss with Parkinson’s Disease and Dementia, Thomas Graboys and Peter Zheutin Facilitator: Susan Sample, MFA |
|
June |
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. Literature:The Sexual Politics of Sickness,Barbara Ehrenreich Facilitator: Mark Matheson, D.Phil |
|
July |
Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. Literature:Equus,Peter Shaffer Facilitator: Aden Ross, PhD |
|
August |
Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. Literature: A Reader's Theater: "Indian Health Service," by Aden Ross and "Imelda" by Richard Selzer " Facilitators:Aden Ross, PhD and Jay Jacobson, MD |
|
September |
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. (Note: in LDSH Pugh Boardroom) Literature:Inside the Halo, Maxine Kumin Facilitator: Susan Sample, MFA |
|
October |
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. Literature: Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw Facilitator: Mark Matheson, D.Phil |
|
November |
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. Literature: A Personal Narrative (This session is CANCELLED and being re-scheduled into 2010) Facilitator: Brooke Hopkins, PhD |
|
December |
Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. Literature: The Secret Scripture, Sebastian Barry Facilitator: Aden Ross, PhD |
Books are available at:
The King’s English bookstore
1511 South 1500 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84105 Tel: (801) 484-9100
and
The University of Utah Health Sciences Bookstore
Located in the HSEB Tel: (801) 581-8049
