The Division offers several elective courses that focus on the Doctor-Patient Relationship in literature, film and personal writing.
Inside/Outside: Perspectives on HIV/AIDS in America (Tess Jones) February 16-27, 2009
This course approaches HIV/AIDS as a biomedical, social, political and creative phenomenon. Through classroom discussion, this interdisciplinary course will first, examine how epidemics solidify barriers among social groups throughout the history of western culture and next, investigate the discourse and images of AIDS in contemporary journalistic writing, autobiography, fiction, poetry, theatre, photography, and film.
Materials include historical accounts of plague outbreaks; literary selections from AIDS and Its Metaphors, Strong Shadows, My Own Country and Positive Women; films such as And the Band Played On, Philadelphia and Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt; plays such as Angels in America and Rent; and the visual arts including People With AIDS, Portraits in the Time of AIDS, and Epitaphs For the Living.
Writing the Doctor-Patient Relationship (Susan Sample) March 2-13, 2009
Reflective writing offers medical students a unique opportunity to define and shape the kind of doctor they want to become. They can explore relationships with patients in terms of empathy, altruism, compassion, and caring. Reflective writing will be presented as both an art form as well as a tool for professional development to be drawn upon when facing ethical or emotional complexities in the future, and to increase personal satisfaction and sense of fulfillment as a physician.
The course will meet for three hours daily. Examples of prose, poetry, and the personal essay will be read for style and form, as well as prompts for writing. Students will be expected to complete assignments that will incorporate writing from experience, observation, and invention, and the use of metaphors, irony, rhythm, humor, honesty, and other essentials. The course will include writing workshops in which manuscripts will be shared with the class and critiqued. The course will culminate with a creative project of the student’s choice, such as a collection of essays, stories, or poems.
Objectives
• To improve observational skills through close attention to language and the ways in which it is used;
• To develop students’ imagination and creativity as means of increasing self-awareness;
• To encourage fuller relationships with patients by strengthening communication skills;
• To explore complex questions in the safe, nonjudgmental space that art provides;
• To provide students with opportunities to reflect upon and articulate their intentions, thus "writing" the kinds of physicians they will become.
The Doctor Patient Relationship in Literature and the Arts: A Different Perspective on Medicine (Tess Jones) March 16-27, 2009
Medical students rarely have an opportunity to study and discuss medicine from non-physician or non-scientific perspectives, particularly those viewpoints provided by literature and the arts. Reading literature, examining the visual arts, and writing their own narratives help medical students "read" and interpret the experiences of both their patients and their colleagues.
Class meetings will consist of discussions of reading, films, and art exhibits, which raise and illuminate issues central to the doctor-patient relationship and to the students' professional development. Students will be expected to attend all seminars and to participate fully in the discussions. Relevant writing and/or creative projects will also be required. Course materials include selections from On Doctoring, Atul Gawande’s Complications, and Leo Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilych”; films such as Something the Lord Made and Whose Life Is It Anyway?
Reel Psychiatry: Cinematic Representations of Mental Illness (Tess Jones) April 13-24, 2009
There is a long-standing and well-documented relationship between movies and psychiatry. For many non-physicians, fiction and documentary films have provided the main exposure to the personal experiences of patients and professionals grappling with mental illness and to the symptoms and treatments of psychotic or personality disorders.
For many physicians, such films have provided ready access to the storehouse of images that dominate the unconscious and to the complex motivations that make up an unforgettable character-patient. Just how accurate are film depictions of psychiatric conditions? And how have such cinematic representations shaped our personal responses, cultural beliefs and social policies regarding the mentally ill and those who care for them?
This course is organized into four sections: “Breaking Cinematic Ground” which includes the films Snakepit (1947) and Titicut Follies (1969); “The Family and Mental Illness” which includes the films Ordinary People (1980) and Out of the Shadow (2004); “Society, the Individual and Mental Illness” which includes One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005); and “Relationships and Mental Illness” which includes Beautiful Mind (2001) and What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993. Readings include literary materials, historical and cultural analyses, and selections from psychiatry and film studies. Research Projects in Medical Humanities - an independent study
For dates and times of courses, call the Dean's Office at 581-3657.
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