No Man’s Land
I recall a patient’s husband recounting what his wife’s oncologist said when her cancer progressed and was no longer curable. The doctor told her to adjust her outlook “to living with cancer rather...
View ArticleDon’t Make Trouble
So, how does someone find themselves creating the role of a medical humanist? I can tell you that there were signs a long time ago. As a little girl I’d often position myself to overhear conversations...
View ArticleIn Illness…Words Give Out a Scent
“In illness…words give out their scent… at last we grasp the meaning, it is all having come to us sensually first, by way of the palate and the nostril…” Virginia Woolf, “On Being Ill” (1930) Taped...
View ArticlePatients as Teachers
I’ve often been asked if our programs to improve doctor-patient communication have been incorporated into medical education. I can tell you that over the years we presented the Center for Communication...
View ArticleImpact of Words
I recently discovered a copy of Doctor-Patient Magazine from fall 2005 in which I was interviewed about my role as a medical humanist at Southwestern Vermont Regional Cancer Center. The article’s...
View ArticleWhen Illness Changes Our Future
I recently discovered an email from Dr. Zail Berry, a physician with expertise in internal medicine, palliative care and Hospice. Several years ago, we had asked her to review SpeakSooner: A Patient’s...
View ArticleOn Being A Patient Revisited
I often think of my dear friend Brian Gawlik who had been managing his illness for over a decade when we interviewed him in 2008 for our Speak Sooner newsletter (before I began writing a blog for the...
View ArticleCan Telling Stories Help?
In a New Yorker article “Why Storytelling Is Part Of Being A Good Doctor” (July 25, 2022) Dr. Jerome Groopman confides, “For two decades, I had seen my patients and their loved ones face some of life’s...
View ArticleInjecting Humanism Into Medicine
I had the good fortune of working with the late Dr. James Wallace, the first oncologist in the State of Vermont, who came out of retirement to practicing part-time at the cancer center in Bennington....
View ArticleIt Might Be Otherwise
I’ve always been drawn to Jane Kenyon’s poem “Otherwise.” Her words help me to stop and reflect upon what’s happening in the moment. How often do we not pay attention and appreciate the little things...
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