A Life in Medicine: A Literary Anthology

by Coles, Robert; Testa, Randy-Michael; D'Donnell, Joseph, M.D.

• ISBN13: 9781565848498
• ISBN10: 1565848497
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-09-01
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services

Summary

A literary collection edited by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the "Children of Crisis" series. Take notes. In the end, you will suffer alone. But at the beginning you suffer with a whole lot of other people.Lorrie Moore, from A Life in Medicine A Life in Medicine collects stories, poems, and essays by and for those in the healing profession who are struggling to keep up with the science while staying true to the humanitarian goals at the heart of their work. Described as "an admirably complete look at the best recent writing on medicine" by the Detroit Free Press, the book includes well-known authors such as William Carlos Williams, Wendell Berry, Anne Fadiman, Lorrie Moore, and Walt Whitman, as well as writing from doctors, nurses, practitioners, and patients. Provocative and moving contributions address issues of life and death, cancer and AIDS, seizures and psychosis, advocacy and anatomy, from both ends of the stethoscope.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	xiii
PREFACE
by Randy Testa, Joseph O'Donnell, Penny Armstrong, and M. Brownell Anderson	xv
INTRODUCTION
The Moral Education of Medical Students by Robert Coles	xvii
PART ONE Physicians Must Be Altruistic	1	(66)
ROSALIND WARREN
Outpatient	3	(6)
ALBERT SCHWEITZER
from First Sermon on Reverence for Life	9	(3)
RAFAEL CAMPO
Like a Prayer	12	(7)
CORTNEY DAVIS
The Body Flute	19	(4)
JEROME LOWENSTEIN
Can You Teach Compassion?	23	(5)
KIRSTEN EMMOTT
1852: J. Marion Sims Perfects a Repair for Vesicovaginal Fistula	28	(3)
ROBERT JAY LIFTON
from The Nazi Doctors	31	(8)
LAWRENCE GROUSE
The Lie	39	(3)
WALT WHITMAN
The Wound Dresser, from Leaves of Grass	42	(4)
SUSAN ONTHANK MATES
The Good Doctor	46	(12)
HART CRANE
Episode of Hands	58	(2)
SHUSAKO ENDO
from Deep River	60	(7)
PART TWO Physicians Must Be Knowledgeable	67	(72)
ALICE JONES
The Cadaver	69	(14)
ANTON CHEKHOV
Anyuta	83	(5)
JACK COULEHAN
The Man with Stars Inside Him	88	(3)
RACHEL NAOMI REMEN
From the Heart	91	(3)
JEFFREY R. BOTKIN
The Seductive Beauty of Physiology	94	(7)
LORRIE MOORE
from People Like That Are the Only People Here; Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk	101	(2)
THEODORE DEPPE
Admission, Children's Unit	103	(3)
TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS
The Village Watchman	106	(8)
BERNARD POMERANCE
from The Elephant Man: A Play	114	(4)
LEWIS THOMAS
Leech, Leech, Et Cetera	118	(8)
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
Baptism by Rotation, from A Country Doctor's Notebook	126	(10)
JUDY SCHAEFFER
Who Owns the Libretto?	136	(3)
PART THREE Physicians Must Be Skillful	139	(102)
DAVID NASH
The Tallis Case	141	(3)
ABRAHAM VERGHESE
from My Own Country	144	(9)
RAYMOND CARVER
What the Doctor Said	153	(2)
JEANNE BRYNER
This Red Oozing	155	(3)
JOHN STONE
From the Listening End of the Stethoscope	158	(6)
ALYSON PORTER
Large Woman, Half	164	(2)
CONSTANCE MEYD
The Knee	166	(2)
JEAN-DOMINIQUE BAUBY
from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly	168	(3)
LUCIA CORDELL GETSI
Letter from the Rehabilitation Institute	171	(3)
AUDRE LORDE
Breast Cancer: Power vs. Prosthesis, from The Cancer Journals	174	(6)
RAYMOND CARVER
A Small, Good Thing	180	(24)
TIMOTHY J. FISHER
Pies	204	(2)
SARAH LENTZ
Communion	206	(2)
ERIC J. CASSEZ
The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine	208	(15)
MATT DUGAN
Repose	223	(3)
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
The Girl with the Pimply Face	226	(13)
MICHAEL WEINGARTEN
Healers: The Physician and the Mori	239	(2)
PART FOUR Physicians Must Be Dutiful	241	(84)
DAVID HILFIKER
from Not All of Us Are Saints	243	(12)
JAMES WRIGHT
In Terror of Hospital Bills	255	(2)
VENETA MASSON
Another Case of Chronic Pelvic Pain	257	(5)
LORI ARVISO ALVORD
from The Scalpel and the Silver Bear	262	(9)
KIRSTEN EMMOTT
Unwed	271	(2)
PENNY ARMSTRONG AND SHERYL FELDMAN
from A Wise Birth	273	(13)
ANNE FADIMAN
from The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down	286	(10)
WENDELL BERRY
Health Is Membership	296	(7)
KAY REDFIELD JAMISON
from An Unquiet Mind	303	(4)
ROBERT COLES
A Young Psychiatrist Looks at His Profession, from The Mind's Fate	307	(9)
ABRAHAM VERGHESE
from The Tennis Partner	316	(2)
DAVID LOXTERCAMP
Facing Our Morality: The Virtue of a Common Life	318	(7)
PERMISSIONS	325