Month: March 2017
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The Homemaker
Jessica A. Harder, MD Boston, Massachusetts, USA Poet’s statement: My poems explore moments of intense emotive experience, particularly themes of overwhelming awe and wonder, sensual delight, and excruciating empathy with those in pain or suffering. They also ponder the limits of human understanding, especially of science and the natural world, and the larger questions of meaning-making…
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Struggles, gratitude, and love
Jeconda Harris David G. Thoele Park Ridge, Illinois, USA Poet’s statement: Jeconda Harris, my patient for 17 years, gave me a collection of her poetry and expressed her desire to have it published. Regretfully, this did not happen within her lifetime, but, with her mother Barbara’s consent, her wish has finally come true. “Life’s…
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Literary Quiz – #2 answers
William Boyd: The Pathology of Internal Diseases James A. Michener: Iberia Ernest Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls Aristotle: Metaphysics Xenophon: Anabasis Virginia Woolf: Night and Day William Faulkner: Sanctuary Winston Churchill: The Second World War Stephen Crane: The Red Badge of Courage Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea
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Literary Quiz – #2
FIRST SENTENCES OF GREAT CLASSICS TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE! Of all the ailments that may blow out life’s little candle, heart disease is the chief. I have long believed that any man interested in either the mystic or the romantic aspects of life must sooner or later define his attitude concerning Spain. He lay flat on…
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Psychosocial – Hospice House
Jim Gustafson, MDiv Fort Myers, Florida, USA Poet’s statement: “Hospice House” reflects on a time recently spent in the lobby of our local hospice facility, as I visited with a good friend named Wilma. “Psychosocial” reflects on the most recent events of Wilma’s life as she, who very much hates to fly, flew to visit…
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Plato on free and slave doctors
Athenian: And have you further observed that there are slaves as well as free men among the patients in our communities. The slaves are generally treated by slave doctors, who pay them a hurried visit or wait for them in the dispensaries. A physician of this kind never speaks to his patient individually or lets…
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An ancient oath with modern significance
Emmanuel Ugokwe SIA Africa and Society for Young Writers, Nigeria Southeast and SouthSouth Hippocrates of Kos Engraving by Peter Paul Rubens, 1638 About 400 BCE Hippocrates, commonly known as the father of medicine, wrote the Hippocratic oath. That noble, ethical creed still guides the medical profession. Is that what you have been taught? If so, you…
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A visit to New York: A wonderful town
George DuneaChicago, IL Originally published in the British Medical Journal, December 8, 1979 New York remains exciting, vast, wonderfully alive. On Fifth Avenue, elegant ladies promenade in the sun, ride in horse carriages, spend their money at Gucci’s and Tiffany’s, or cast wistful eyes at the window where Empress Josephine’s tiara and the emerald-studded crown…
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If I ruled the world
George Dunea, MD BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL – VOLUME 325 – NOVEMBER 30, 2002 In the first year of my dictatorship I will ban sugar coated doughnuts, atonal music, phenylbutazone, and hospital public relations departments. With the ruthlessness of irrational dictators I will outlaw multivitamin pills, ties with horizontal stripes, malpractice lawyers, useless expensive drugs, and…
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Fish story
Tim Chapman Chicago, Illinois, United States You can get to know a person pretty well when you’re helping them wipe their ass. My name is Ernie Fischetti. I was named after “Mr. Cub,” Ernie Banks. I used to hate the Cubs. In fact, until this year, I hated baseball altogether. I hated hearing guys…