conversations about medicine and life
Richard German
From as early as I can remember, I loved reading. Many of my early memories are associated with books. I always had a predilection for non-fiction, and my fiction tastes ran primarily to science fiction. Through my early and mid-teenage years the love affair with books continued, despite the predations of School Cert, University Entrance and Bursary.
But then I achieved my teenage ambition of gaining entry to medical school…
Dr Jacob Edmond
I coordinate a University of Otago English paper, ENGL131: Controversial Classics, which is an approved eighth paper for Health Science First Year. As I posted on the course Facebook page, ENGL131 fosters the skills that a recent report suggests are the best predictors of success in the health professions: critical thinking, analysis, and communication.
[Read more…] about Why studying Milton and Plath might make you a better doctor
Dr Ruth Cunningham
Wherever the art of Medicine is loved, there is also a love of Humanity.”
― Hippocrates
When I was finishing high school in the early 1990s and considering what to do next, several teachers and friends of my parents suggested that studying medicine might allow me to balance my interests and aptitudes in both art and science subjects, as well as offering a multitude of rewarding career opportunities.
And so I enrolled at Otago, hoping to be accepted to medical school, but wanting to keep my options open and excited by the opportunity to try new disciplines such as philosophy. In my first year I was able to study medieval history, modernist literature, epistemology and logic alongside the compulsory papers required. Other potential doctors around me studied anthropology, psychology, mathematics, Māori, even law.
Dr Lesley Morrison
On the bookmark inside Tools of the Trade, a little pocket book of poems for new doctors, is a poem by the doctor poet Gael Turnbull, ‘Lines for a Bookmark’:
You who read..
May you seek
As you look;
May you keep
What you need;
May you care
What you choose;
And know here
In this book
Something strange,
Something sure,
That will change
You and be yours.
This was and is very much our aspiration for this project, to enhance the experience of being a new doctor, and to provide a comforting, supporting and illuminating friend.
Dr Joe Baker
We are told medical students flourish with a good dose of the humanities but as with all interventions the verification is in the dessert. Even the most gorgeous sounding of approaches should have its outcomes considered.
In recent years medical students have had lists of recommended readings thrust upon them. I wanted to know how these students had turned out as doctors and how literature might have influenced their practices.
My first study subject was Dr Laurence Gielgud who, as a second year student, was encouraged to read the works of Shakespeare. Gielgud set up the aptly named Globe Medical Centre in a leafy Dunedin suburb in the 1990s. We agreed to meet there one Tuesday. Unfortunately when I arrived he had just been called away.
[Read more…] about Medical Training and the Humanities: a study
Dr Jo Oranje
As a New Zealander, it is perfectly conceivable that I might feel pissed off at having to piss off when it pisses down while I’m on the piss at a piss up. And if I’m unexpectedly asked by a medical professional to provide a urine sample, I might retort: “You’re taking the piss!” If my doctor or nurse speaks English as an additional language (EAL) and is unfamiliar with this idiom, she might interpret this literally: “Yes, that’s exactly my intention.” But this assumes the practitioner is aware that ‘piss’, in this context, is a noun. In fact, ‘piss’ is one of those complex English words that can operate in many word categories. In the sentences above, piss has taken roles in verb phrases, noun phrases and an adjectival phrase. I didn’t pluck this one word out of the air (or pull it out of my finger, as my Polish neighbour says).
