Fiction - Corpus

“Start at once a bedside library”: narrative competence and medicine

4 September 2017 2 Comments

Sue Wootton

Canadian physician Sir William Osler (1849-1919), sometimes called ‘the father of modern medicine’, urged doctors to maintain a lifetime habit of reading. In an address delivered at the opening of the Boston Medical Library in 1901, he said:

To study the phenomena of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.”

But, important though it was to keep up-to-date with the latest scientific findings, he did not want clinicians to limit themselves to reading medical texts. Osler advocated also reading broadly and deeply in the humanities and literature. He believed that “for physicians to be properly educated to practice their art, knowledge of the science of medicine … must be supplemented by familiarity with the humanities.”

Fictional doctors

14 August 2017 1 Comment

John Hale

Historically, plays, then novels, treated medical doctors as stock characters, often quacks or figures of fun, as in the Commedia dell’ Arte. Similarly, in Wycherley’s 1675 Restoration comedy, The Country Wife, the doctor serves as a device for the audience to be in the know, about Horner’s camouflage as a eunuch.

And Macbeth, telling the Doctor about his wife’s condition, understands it better than the doctor does:

that perilous stuff that weighs about the heart.

[Read more…] about Fictional doctors

About living with cancer … “I’d Rather Be a Fairy Princess” by Petra Kotrotsos

7 August 2017 Leave a Comment

Sue Wootton

When Petra Kotrotsos was six years old and playing in a park with friends, she fell off a roundabout, landing on her back. The pain didn’t settle, and Petra was taken to the doctor. An x-ray revealed a large tumour (a neuroblastoma) in her chest.

Now 20, Kotrotsos has written a book for children who find themselves faced with the same kind of challenge. I’d Rather Be a Fairy Princess begins with a statement of courage and fortitude:

My name is Petra and I am seven years old. I’ve always wanted to be a fairy princess, but when cancer attacks, you have to fight it. You have to be a warrior.”

Ghost School: learning to live

27 March 2017 1 Comment

Rachel Stedman

I began working in healthcare when I was a student, before graduating into physiotherapy and, more latterly, working for ACC, Ministry of Health and a number of District Health Boards. That’s thirty-something years in total. Scary, how time flies.

I also write fiction. So, given my working life has been in healthcare, I suppose it was inevitable that at least one book would be set in the world of a hospital. After all: write what you know. This is the story of that book, and how I discovered that, despite a lifetime in the sector, I knew next to nothing about healthcare.

From nurse to novelist: Penelope Todd

20 February 2017 Leave a Comment

Sue Wootton

Writing fiction enlarged the scope of my thinking” – Penelope Todd

Penelope Todd is a novelist, editor and publisher. She trained as a nurse, and practised for almost 20 years in hospitals, GP surgeries and a hospice. Her powerful novel, Island, draws inspiration from her nursing experience, and from a real-life quarantine hospital on an island near her home in Dunedin, New Zealand. About making the transition from nurse to novelist, Penelope says:

I went into nursing keen to make some sort of practical difference in the world. I was young, idealistic and somewhat blinkered by my ideals. I’m glad now of the exposure to such a variety of people and to the suffering of others, which doubtless lifted the lid on my insularity. It didn’t occur to me to write (besides in letters and journals, which I’ve done since childhood) until I had three young children, and found myself exhilarated by the act of writing a short story for a competition deadline. This galvanising activity seemed suddenly necessary, and I was to learn in due course just where that vital current could lead someone willing to follow it.”

A classic in the history of medicine: “A Midwife’s Tale”

19 December 2016 Leave a Comment

Barbara Brookes

A Midwifes Tale ‘I was Calld to Mrs Howards this morning for to see her son. Find him very low. Went from Mrs Howards to see Mrs Williams. Find her very unwell. Hannah Cool is there. From thence to Joseph Fosters to see her sick Children. Find Saray & Daniel very ill. Came home went to the field & got some Cold water root. Then Calld to Mr Kenydays to see Polly. Very ill with the Canker. Gave her some of the root. I gargled her throat which gave her great Ease. Returned home after dark. Mr Ballard been to Cabesy. His throat is very soar. He gargled with my tincture. Find relief & went to bed comfortably.’ [Read more…] about A classic in the history of medicine: “A Midwife’s Tale”