Dr Joe Baker
The first speaker on day two of the recent conference of the North and East Otago Literature Is Therapy Society (NEO-LITh-S) was Professor Iain U Endoe. Professor Endoe believes health professionals are talented actors who, more than any other group except perhaps, err, actors—and of course politicians—are able to radically modify their presenting personas according to the circumstances they encounter. A healthcare worker can discuss rugby with a freezing worker and then immediately go on to discuss post-modern concepts with a professor of literature, feigning interest all the while.
But there are limits, and if that limit is reached health workers may revert back to their innate states, with all their associated prejudices and offensive behaviours. Professor Endoe presented a case where a GP, “James”, transformed his usual solitary, rugged and stoic Cantabrian character into mellow bonhomie when called out to help a holiday maker from Paris who had met with misfortune. It was the severe unrelenting uni-directional banter which eventually led James to break his role play: [Read more…] about NEOLIThs Conference: Day Two
Last week we went to church, Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in New Orleans, to be precise. While we were there we witnessed, and took part in, some transformative singing. The experience was something like 
When I started my career shift from Hospital Medicine to Palliative Medicine in 2004, my mother asked me “Why in the world do you want to work with people who are going to die? That is so depressing.” My answer then and my answer now is the same. “I am a doctor, I already work with people who are dying—and I know it can be done better.”