Cell 2 Soul: The Humane Health Care Blog

Three End of Life Poems

Here are three poems by Frank L. Meyskens, Jr.:
Tidal Wave addresses the feelings engendered in me when a ‘favorite patient’ asked me quite directly to end his life. Pulling the Trigger was my answer. Life Panel was a general answer to Sarah Palin’s ignorant comments about DeathPanels.”  His books of poetry are:
Aching for Tomorrow (2007) and Believing in Today (2014).

Dr. Meyskens is Professor of Medicine, Biological Chemistry and Public Health, College of Health Sciences School of Medicine and Director, Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California Irvine.  He writes: “I have written a lot about end of life issues including termination of life by physicians. 
PDF:  Download End of Life Poems Meyskens

LIFE PANEL

The sickness has revisited
a body wracked, invaded
unremitting, day and night.
Life ebbs, the verdict in.

All systems and technology failing
maxed out with morphine and wonder drugs
vital juices no longer flowing.
Desperate and despondent for hope.

Who should be the jury
no controversy or doubt
that the end is near.
The last great act of living here.

Life closing, shadows abound
Decisions made by a life panel
the one most loved who will
loosen the rope and send me home.

 

Two Good Samaritans in the Himalaya

I was suffering from what the famous Himalayan explorer, Tilman termed as ‘mountaineer’s foot’, the inability to put one before the other! The stones and boulders were loose and the moraine walking difficult. The sun had disappeared behind the clouds and the atmosphere looked threatening. Dark clouds were gathering on the highest mountains on Earth. The rumble of avalanches could be heard in the distance. I was on my way back from the Everest Base Camp, walking fast on the Khumbu Glacier trying to reach shelter before the snowstorm broke. A few snowflakes were beginning to fall. The temperature had dropped by around 10 degrees Celsius and the wind was picking up. My body temperature was also beginning to drop...  Download Two Good Samaritans

Ravi Shankar is an occasional contributor to Cell 2 Soul.  He is a medical professor who spent over twelve years teaching in the Himalayan country of Nepal and enjoyed trekking in the wonderful hills. He is at present a faculty at the Xavier University School of Medicine, Aruba, Kingdom of the Netherlands.  Photos by Dr. Ravi Shankar.  You may contact him at: Shankar PR

A New Playbook

Child's Play

A recent obituary in the New York Times gave pause for thought.
Brian Sutton-Smith, a developmental psychologist whose work — prolific, scholarly and precedent-setting — was quite literally child’s play, died on March 7, 2015 at 90.

"Despite the academic respectability he had almost single-handedly conferred on play, interviewers persisted in asking Professor Sutton-Smith why he spent his life on the subject.

When challenged: 'Why do you study play?' he replied on one occasion. 'We study play because life is crap. Life is crap, and it’s full of pain and suffering, and the only thing that makes it worth living — the only thing that makes it possible to get up in the morning and go on living — is play.'

Sutton-Smith would have appreciated some lines from Tagore’s Gitanjali:
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous.
On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.

We don't pay enough attention to the therapeutic value of play.  Sutton-Smith parsed it.  Tagore celebrated it.  Caitlin Stiglmeier, working with children in a Indian village, lived it.

photo by Caitlin S.

The Sonnet Project

The Sonnet Project is a completely crazy idea dreamed up by Ross Williams from NY Shakespeare Exchange. 154 sonnets, 154 NYC locations, 154 actors. It’s a tapestry of cinematic art that infuses the poetry of William Shakespeare into the poetry of New York City. It’s huge, it’s visceral and it’s right here.
The Sonnet Project very quickly blossomed into something more. It became apparent that each sonnet was not simply a ‘video’ – not simply an actor standing at a monument reciting a sonnet – but a short independent film. Every single sonnet required time and effort beyond our imagining. But the finished product! Each one is expansive, narrative – a work of art.

If you are reading this on a smartphone or a tablet here’s the app: Shakespeare for Everyone.

NY Times article: Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Through a New York Lens (April 6, 2015)

“It brings Shakespeare to people who might not be in touch with it, and we can use social media like Twitter and Instagram to spread the word”

The group, which started the project in 2013, just completed its 100th film: Sonnet 27, starring Carrie Preston, an Emmy award-winning actress, and filmed on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. 

So far, the project’s organizers have spent about $30,000,  All the actors work at no cost.  The organizers hope to create a walking tour app out of the project.

Stay tuned!

Rx: The Quiet Revolution

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.
Modern version of Hippocratic Oath

PBS April 2, 2015

In this inspiring 90-minute documentary, filmmaker David Grubin takes his camera across America to focus on the challenges and triumphs in our country’s health care delivery system. The four segments that comprise Rx: The Quiet Revolution introduce us to a diverse group of doctors, nurses, and health care professionals who are transforming the way we receive our medical care: lowering costs by placing the patient at the center of their practice.

Rx: The Quiet Revolution shows us what’s happening from Maine to Mississippi, California to Alaska.  You will see physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals placing the patient at the center of their practice — transforming the way medical care is delivered while lowering costs and improving outcomes.

Filmmaker David Grubin brings you these compelling stories: 

• In Maine, we meet Dr. David Loxterkamp, who practices family medicine with a team of doctors working to treat patients with chronic illnesses.

• In Mississippi, a state with more diabetes cases than any other, Grubin finds a rural health clinic fighting diabetes with the aid of an electronic communications device that provides greater access to medical care, helping patients take responsibility for managing this devastating chronic disease.

• In San Francisco, Grubin visits a health care facility for seniors called On Lok, dedicated to making it possible for frail, elderly Americans in need of nursing home care to live with dignity in their own homes.
  
  
• In Alaska, the documentary follows Native Alaskans who own and operate their own health system, caring for 65,000 people across 107,000 square miles. In spite of the number of patients and the vast distances between them, they are determined to foster an empathetic relationship between patients and their health care providers.

At 90 minutes, this may seem a daunting investment in time, but Rx: The Quiet Revolution will speak to you in powerful and compelling ways.

I've Known Rivers

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Langston Hughes: The Negro Speaks of Rivers