Cell 2 Soul: The Humane Health Care Blog

Paper Teachers

I was asked to write an essay for the International Journal of User-Driven Healthcare on postgraduate learning.  Since the article is not available free open access, I have attached it here.

Abstract: Physicians spend many years immersed (drowning?) in their professional literature. There is no way anyone can keep up with it and most of it is, after all, forgettable, boring and sadly inaccurate. The attached essay’s  thesis is that the arts (literature, music, fine art, film) are vitally important to one’s personal and professional development. They provide the Continuous Medical Inspiration that trumps the mandated Continuing Medical Education. Although the professional may not realize it, each of us has a personal canon comprised of those works of art that guide us in our daily lives. “Paper Teachers” covers, among other topics,  thoughts on documenting one’s Personal Canon.

Download “Paper-Teachers_”_-Towards-a-True-Postgraduate-Education

 

“To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations - such is pleasure beyond compare.” Kenko, Essays in Idleness

 

Reading Binges

Nicholas Davies, a respected Atlanta internist, was in the habit of taking two weeks off every summer to read, play golf and relax. "I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what I shall read during my summer vacation. " he wrote. "It is a major concern... I must be some sort of reading nut; a bibliomaniac of sorts...

One evening I was having dinner with Stephen Lock, the BMJ's editor. We were talking about reading for pleasure and I said that I usually stayed with the classics. He agreed with this plan and said, "Yes Nicholas, you might have 500 more books that you can read in your lifetime. Stick with the best.. I have followed that disquieting pragmatic advice ever since."

Sadly, in 1993 Davies was killed in a plane crash while on official business for the American College of Physicians.  His article, "Reading Binges" which appeared in the British Medical Journal 299, 1209-10, 1989. Download Reading Binges

Literature of Dying

In her recent essay in the NY Times, Meghan O’Rourke addresses the literature of “death narratives.”  This subject has held humanity in thrall since the beginning of literature.  Gilgamesh, one of the earliest extant tales, explores this topic.

Haiku masters almost all penned “death poems:”

sick on my journey
my dreams wander 
the withered fields
                     Basho

Ms. O’Rourke’s essay begins:
Death has been a great literary theme for so long you might think there’d be little left to say on the subject, but in recent decades the literature of death has taken an interesting and novel turn. Writers are recording their own deaths as they happen.

If this subject interests you for personal or professional reasons you will value this insightful essay. Download O'Rourke Dispatches

 

Marginal Notes: The ability to see

 

“[Walden Pond] is earth’s eye,” Thoreau writes, “looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.”  more»

 

Brian T. Maurer has practiced pediatrics as a Physician Assistant for 32 years.  His "Marginal Notes" column appears periodically in the Cell2Soul Blog. The title "Marginal Notes" is taken from a quote by Henry David Thoreau: "I love a broad margin to my life."

Marginal Notes: Literary medical weblogs

 

The Doctor by Sir Luke Fildes, 1887

There is much more to the art of healing than just closing a surgical incision, dressing a wound or writing a prescription.  Medical practice is after all the stuff of life; and because literature historically has been an attempt to capture the essence of what it means to be alive, it is small wonder that the two complement each other so beautifully.

None of us can be all things to all men; but we can certainly make some fumbling attempts to alleviate suffering in the world and bear one another’s burdens as best we can.  As Rilke so aptly put it, perhaps if we learn to love the questions themselves, we can one day live on into the answers. more»

 

Brian T. Maurer has practiced pediatrics as a Physician Assistant for thirty years.  His "Marginal Notes" column appears periodically in the Cell2Soul Blog. The title "Marginal Notes" is taken from a quote by Henry David Thoreau: "I love a broad margin to my life."

Marginal Notes: The Naïve Narrative

 

In his recent column In Defense of Naïve Reading, Professor Robert Pippin speaks to the state of literary criticism as it is taught on university campuses.  His contention is that, although the current trend is to scrutinize the literary arts through the lens of the natural scientific research model — with the ultimate end of developing a “science of meaning” — creative works themselves were never crafted to serve research.  Rather, their authors penned them as works of art, works meant to speak to us at the deepest level of our being. I was reminded of these words during small group discussion at our recent Cell2Soul gathering on Nantucket. more»

 

Brian T. Maurer has practiced pediatrics as a Physician Assistant for thirty years.  His "Marginal Notes" column appears periodically in the Cell2Soul Blog. The title "Marginal Notes" is taken from a quote by Henry David Thoreau: "I love a broad margin to my life."

Marginal Notes: Nantucket Bound

How Melville's Ishmael got from Manhattan to New Bedford is unclear; but for the record I drove to Hyannis, taking the Bourne Bridge across the Cape Cod Canal and pulling into the Yarmouth lot shortly before eleven o’clock on a crisp clear Friday autumn morning.  The shuttle driver dropped me off at the dock just in time for me to pay my passage on the high-speed ferry to Nantucket.

On board the M/V Iyanough I elbowed my way through the mass of humanity in the main cabin to the upper deck, where I found an open spot on the fantail.  I stood at the head of the port ladder and looked out over the harbor as the boat’s engines kicked in.  Slowly we backed out of our berth and turned toward the channel that led to the open sea.  more»

 

Brian T. Maurer has practiced pediatrics as a Physician Assistant for thirty years.  His "Marginal Notes" column appears periodically in the Cell2Soul Blog. The title "Marginal Notes" is taken from a quote by Henry David Thoreau: "I love a broad margin to my life."

Why Read? by Mark Edmundson

In this extraordinary book, Mark Edmundson tells us that: "The purpose of a liberal arts education is to give people an enhanced opportunity to decide how they should live their lives" and that literature is "the major cultural source of vital options."  This book opens one's eyes and makes one feel as Keats did, “like a watcher of the sky/When a new planet swims into is ken.”

Here are some notes from Why Read?  You will find them enlightening.