“Anatomy in Nature” is a gift that encourages appreciating the beauty and miracle of our bodies and the correspondence between forms in nature and what’s inside us—our heart, our lungs, our brain, our spine. What keeps us alive.
Seeing is Believing: Reflecting on Miracles by Andrew Taylor-Troutman
A reflection on “My Grandpa” by Meghan Wang (Poetry / Spring, 2013)
I see his body, but I do not see him
So begins Meghan Wang’s poem and her words cut to the core of the grief I have known in watching an aged loved one. I have lost people before their actual deaths. I know that sight is a metaphor for understanding. That is the double-meaning of the poem’s line:
It’s hard to see him like this
Being a Patient: Coping with the Loss of Control and Privacy in a Hospital by Rebecca Grossman-Kahn
Patients often feel unexpectedly confined in the hospital.
Read moreA Reflection on Philip Berry’s “Semantics in the Elevator” and the Word “Sorry” by V Karri
Karri explores the multiple meaning of the word “sorry” in her daily practice.
Read moreWhen Life Changes in a Moment: A Response to “A Mother’s Life” by poet Emily Kerlin
An operative disaster affects both the surgeon and the patient.
Read moreThe Balance of Blame, When Something Goes Wrong, a reflection on "Physician as Enabler" by Philip Berry
In my article ‘Semantics in the Elevator’ a doctor reflects on his culpability after a colonoscopic perforation (not based on a real incident). The patient’s anatomy is fleetingly blamed; then he considers the fact that he just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time – the perforation could well have happened if a colleague had been doing the procedure.
Read moreWho Are Illness Narratives For, Anyway? by Rachel Conrad Bracken
Whether formally written and published or only ever shared with our most trusted confidants—perhaps never even uttered aloud at all—narratives structure our understanding of the world and of our selves.
Read moreMulti-lingual Solace: Holding Space for Co-Existence by Elisabeth Abeson
The line summarizing Emma Rivera’s poem, “Mi Jardin / My Garden” (Intima Fall 2011) reads, “Nature and its straightforward beauty brings solace in any language.”
Read moreReflecting on "The Loneliness of Dying" by Veronica Tomasic by Henry Sussman and Jeffrey Newman
Henry Sussman received his PhD in Comparative Literature from Johns Hopkins University in 1975 and taught Comparative and German Literatures at universities including Johns Hopkins, SUNY Buffalo, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rutgers, and Yale. At Yale, he evolved a course in German fairy tales out of his interests in critical theory, philosophy, psychoanalysis and cybernetics. “Wisdom in the End: Folktales and Narrative Technique in End-of-Life Palliation” by Sussman and co-author Jeffrey Newman appears in the Spring 2019 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine.
In her fine essay, In the Far Canada of a Hospital Room: The Loneliness of Dying, Tomasic describes her personal experience as a conservator with end of life clients, and she refers to a variety of literature addressing the anguish and its relief from the point of view of patients themselves, clinicians, and caregivers.
In the Danish film, “At Night,” three young women on an oncology service provide each other the support and comfort ignored by the clinicians. In “Wit,” the inpatient nurse supports the protagonist through her aggressive chemotherapy. And at the end, a visiting literature professor comforts her by reading The Runaway Bunny.
Tomasic’s discussion of Tolstoy’s masterpiece The Death of Ivan Ilyich emphasizes the saintly caring of the protagonist by his loyal servant, comparing it to the psychoanalytic concept of the holding environment. And she reminds us of Holden Caulfield’s continuing ruminations on the death of his younger brother Allie, contributing to his isolation and aimlessness in the Catcher in the Rye.
Jeff Newman is a Professor in the Institute for Health & Aging at UCSF. Trained in Preventive and Internal Medicine, his previous positions were in the US Public Health Service, the California Medicare Quality Improvement Organization, and Sutter Health. “Wisdom in the End: Folktales and Narrative Technique in End-of-Life Palliation” by Newman and co-author Henry Sussman appears in the Spring 2019 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine..
We believe that folk tales – the focus of our paper – can address the loneliness of dying for some patients, clinicians, and caregivers. With child-like grace, they can evoke concepts of personal accounting of successes as well as failures, enchantment and transformation, hope and wisdom, and feelings of self-compassion and acceptance in our own life-stories.
While our patients exit on their own, we can keep them company in the waiting room.
Henry Sussman received his PhD in Comparative Literature from Johns Hopkins University in 1975 and taught Comparative and German Literatures at universities including Johns Hopkins, SUNY Buffalo, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rutgers, and Yale. At Yale, he evolved a course in German fairy tales out of his interests in critical theory, philosophy, psychoanalysis and cybernetics. “Wisdom in the End: Folktales and Narrative Technique in End-of-Life Palliation” by Sussman and co-author Jeffrey Newman appears in the Spring 2019 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine.
Jeff Newman is a Professor in the Institute for Health & Aging at UCSF. Trained in Preventive and Internal Medicine, his previous positions were in the US Public Health Service, the California Medicare Quality Improvement Organization, and Sutter Health. “Wisdom in the End: Folktales and Narrative Technique in End-of-Life Palliation” by Newman and co-author Henry Sussman appears in the Spring 2019 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine..
©2019 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine
What Was, What Is and What Will Be: A reflection on the poem “Decision” by Ron Lands by: Tharshika Thangarasa
Tharshika Thangarasa is a daughter, sister, friend and fourth year medical student at the University of Ottawa. Her artwork “Stroked” appears in the Spring 2019 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine.
It is incredible how abruptly and drastically things can change. Nowhere is this more evident than in medicine.
In his beautiful piece “Decisions”, Ron Lands takes the reader through the delicate moments preceding the disclosure of a medical diagnosis to a patient. Holding the weight of the individual’s new reality, hesitant to pass it on… unsure of whether or not the person has the supports necessary to bear it.
The concept of a new reality, seemingly defined by disease is also depicted in my studio artwork entitled “Stroked”. In this image, the intricate cerebral vasculature is depicted as the branches of a tree. They serve as the highway through which nutrients are able to reach the leaf buds, allowing them to blossom. They allow blood to nourish the neurons of our higher level cortical areas, those that form our identities. A stroke, represented by the burning of these branches, is one example of a medical phenomenon that can unexpectedly, and eternally, alter a person’s life.
Yet, the task of disclosing this to the patient is in the hands of the provider. A person, who too can struggle with it’s magnitude. Providers, patients, families… no one is immune to the sometimes devastating consequences of disease.
Tharshika Thangarasa is a daughter, sister, friend and fourth year medical student at the University of Ottawa. She cultivates her own wellness at the intersection of art and medicine, and hopes to continue to embrace the humanities on her journey to becoming a psychiatrist. Her artwork “Stroked” appears in the Spring 2019 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine.
©2019 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine
Mixed Meanings: How Parallel Conversations Between Doctors and Patients Can Affect A Diagnosis by Rohini Harvey
Sometimes words are just words and it is the listener’s interpretation, rather than the speaker’s intent, that give them meaning.
Read moreDinner, Revelations and Narrative Medicine: Tales told by Intima Spring 2017 by poet Wendy French
This is a blog about Intima and narrative medicine in general and all that we can read and absorb from this excellent online journal. Every issue grabs my attention for the poetry, articles and the blogs that respond to other people’s work.
Wendy French is a poet, whose latest collection of poems is "Thinks Itself A Hawk" (Hippocrates, 2016). Her collaboration with Jane Kirwan resulted in the book "Born in the NHS" (Hippocrates, 2013). She won the Hippocrates Poetry and Medicine prize for the NHS section in 2010 and was awarded second prize in 2011. She has worked for the past twenty years in healthcare settings. Her poem "Exchange" appears in the Spring 2017 Intima.
My poem "Exchange" was written after my son came home from working in the Far East. He brought with him a girlfriend who had also been working with him for the British Council. Poom was Thai. We had never met before and they arrived in the evening. She was exhausted from the long flight. I had prepared a meal and over supper, a nurturing and nourishing time and good time to talk with new and old friends. She told me that her father had died and she was still very sad. We had candles on the table but we lit another one for her father and placed it in an important position near the flowers that seem to symbolize new growth, new seasons.
Then Poom started to tell us that she had had Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, a syndrome I had never heard of. But as she told us her story another narrative emerged, the emotional need to now pass on the story. This for me is what narrative medicine is all about. It’s telling our stories to a health professional who can understand what is going on for us emotionally, intellectually and physically. Poom felt, at this supper in a country she didn’t know, not long after her father’s death and this dreadful illness, that she needed to talk about it and try and rid the experience from her mind in a strange country. This was her narrative being told right now.
I was very struck by the wisdom in Vivian Lam’s Crossroad's essay "This Game We Play Called Dying." Even dying has a narrative for each individual although by the time we are in the clutches of death we may be too ill, too sick, to tell our story to anyone. So it is the people who care for us who have to interpret our story at this stage of our lives. Hence the need, as Vivian Lam says, to be able to know whether or not the dying person wants someone with him/her now or whether she/he’d rather take the final steps alone. Therefore it is the responsibility (and I mean responsibility) of the nearest person to the dying to have found out this part of the narrative while it is possible to do so. This may be the health professional who cares and treats the dying with compassion. Dying is the final and may be the most important part of the narrative.
Wendy French is a poet, whose latest collection of poems is Thinks Itself A Hawk (Hippocrates, 2016). Her collaboration with Jane Kirwan resulted in the book Born in the NHS (Hippocrates, 2013). She won the Hippocrates Poetry and Medicine prize for the NHS section in 2010 and was awarded second prize in 2011. She has worked for the past twenty years in healthcare settings. She was Poet in Residence at the UCH Macmillan Centre from April 2015-2016 and this year will be working with patients/caregivers on writing memoirs. She is one of six poets invited to Bucharest to work with MA students on translations of their novels into English. She currently is writing poems to celebrate Waterloo Bridge.
Rooms with a viewpoint: The metaphorical power of hospitals and medical complexes in illness narratives By Priscilla Mainardi, RN
Rooms can confine us or give us a special place to inhabit. Hallways and corridors can lead us where we want to go or lead us astray. Two works in the Fall 2016 Intima, one fiction and one nonfiction, use these physical spaces to represent the emotional struggles that come with severe or mysterious illness.
Read moreBeing Useful: The Emotional Transformation of A Caregiver. A Commentary on Family and Coming Together by Bekka DePew
We are often powerless in the face of death or illness to do much besides watch; we are forced to recognize “the uselessness of love to give her breath.” This feeling of helplessness we experience, both as physicians and as caretakers, forces us to reevaluate the way we understand ourselves and the purpose behind the role we play as a family member or a healthcare provider.
Read moreThis Game We Play Called “Dying." A Meditation About Being on the Sidelines by Vivian Lam
The game of death is quite addictive.
Of course, the stakes are high—it’s the end of all things, the last chance, last glance, last words. All-or-nothing; last-ditch effort. A lifetime of apologies, love, and tenderness condensed into a prognosis of months, days, a few gasping breaths.
Read moreHow Meta-Narratives Protect and Serve Us by Maureen Hirthler
As I was writing my MFA thesis this summer, I thought daily about narrative. After all, both medicine and memoir are about stories—ours, our patients—and my MFA has been about learning how to tell stories well. Stories should move us forward; occasionally they hold us back. Sometimes the true meaning of stories takes years to uncover.
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