Education – Corpus

A review of Havi Carel’s ‘Phenomenology of Illness’.

7 August 2017 Leave a Comment

Katherine Hall

Vita Non Est Vivere, Sed Valere Vita Est: life is not just being alive, but being well — Martial.

How appropriate Martial’s words are for Phenomenology of Illness by Havi Carel, which explores the concepts of illness and a life well lived. Although overtly a call to arms for philosophers to take more seriously the experience of illness and what this means to be human and for humans, the superb clarity of language makes this an accessible book for anyone interested in this field. It is a text which can speak poignantly to patients, those who care for them, and anybody with an interest in the philosophy of medicine.

It is to the teachers of student doctors, nurses and other future healthcare workers that I particularly address this review. Havi Carel’s book lays bare the injuries endured by patients due to the limitations of the biomedical model of discourse – but thankfully illustrates many possible ways forward.

A report from Teddy Bear Hospital

5 June 2017 Leave a Comment

Savannah Adams

teddy bear hospital med students — Medical students Marnia Brydon and Tui Lute give Big Ted a check up.

Towards the end of May, after months of organising, I was part of a group of second and third year Otago University medical students who had the pleasure of bringing to life the 2017 Dunedin Teddy Bear Hospital. The hospital runs for a week and culminates with a Community Day on the final Saturday. It gives children, mostly aged 3 to 7, the chance to engage with a simulated healthcare environment, but in this case with the wonderful moral support of a best friend – their teddy.

A career in medical oncology

8 May 2017 1 Comment

David Perez

On the surface medical oncology does not seem an attractive career choice. Medical oncology refers to the treatment of cancer by drugs, including chemotherapy. This carries the connotation of patients suffering miserable side effects of treatment and ultimately treatment does not prevent death from the disease. During my training at the University of Auckland Medical School I had no particular awareness of oncology as a career choice as students were not placed on an oncology attachment. Following graduation I spent a year working in a provincial hospital, Taranaki Base Hospital in New Plymouth, then I returned to Auckland Hospital where I was assigned to work for six months on the oncology ward. Oncology wasn’t a popular attachment and I wasn’t overly happy about the prospect. Paradoxically working in oncology proved to be a positive experience and I learnt a lot that had not been highlighted in medical school. This reflected the medical school curriculum of the 1970s which taught a great deal about disease and treatment but not so much about the experience of illness and the impact on the whole person. This unplanned experience in oncology stimulated sufficient interest to consider oncology as a career choice.

Keith Macleod: radically rethinking the clinical relationship

8 May 2017 Leave a Comment

Sue Hallwright

University of Otago Medical School, Dunedin

I have strong memories of being taught by Keith Macleod when I was studying medicine at the University of Otago in the 1970s. He had a unique approach to teaching in action. I recall him, for example, discussing the profession of medicine in a tutorial. He challenged our shared view that medicine is all about curing and healing. He mooted that people are dying from the minute that they are born, that every second of every day people are treating their terminal condition by taking their next breath. Only when people fail in their self-treatment and when their friends and families are unable to help them, do people eventually seek help from doctors. On this basis, medicine is a failure-based system and ultimately all people must die, so we must fail with every single patient.

Keith Macleod: a unique and powerful teacher

1 May 2017 1 Comment

Sue Hallwright

My recollections of Keith Macleod date back to the late 1970s when I was studying medicine at the University of Otago. Keith’s views regarding the role of clinical medicine in people’s lives, his focus on patient experience and his methods of teaching all had a major impact on me. All that I learned from Keith in my early medical education has stayed with me and remained relevant over the years.

This was an era in which most doctors and patients tended to view the doctor as the ‘expert’: the person with all of the knowledge about illnesses and how to treat them. The patient’s job was to provide a good history of the condition, make themselves available for examination and investigation, and then, once diagnosed, to follow their doctor’s instructions regarding treatment. As I recall it, the importance of the patients’ expertise, the meaning of their condition in the context of their lives and the limits to medical knowledge and practice were not acknowledged within the medical school curriculum at that time.

‘The Next Patient in the Waiting Room’: Keith Macleod and the clinical encounter

24 April 2017 1 Comment

Gwynnedd Somerville and Charlotte Paul

What are you here for, if not to treat difficult patients?”

“How to take a history from and examine a sick person would seem an unusual starting point to create a philosophy of life … but that did not deter Keith”, writes psychiatrist Sandy Macleod in The Next Patient in the Waiting Room, a book of essays about his father, which we have edited. Keith Macleod joined the Department of Medicine at the University of Otago in 1951 and became a neurologist at Dunedin Hospital. Following his interest in the borderland between neurological and psychiatric disorders, he later became a neuro-psychiatric consultant at Ashburn Hall, retiring in 1983. He was also a philosopher, poet and great talker. The essays in the book explore Keith’s philosophy of life from the point of view of colleagues, family, patients, students, and friends. Here we take the title of the volume to touch on some of his maddeningly difficult ideas.