Here's - Hebron Academy

4
The
Case for
Heirs of
General
Practice
by Jai Kyeong Kim ‘11
Have you ever
thought of becoming a
doctor? If so, what sort
of doctor do you wish
to be? As a patient,
what sort of doctor do
you wish to meet? John
McPhee’s Heirs of General
Practice stylishly
describes the doctors
whom we all wish to
meet, those who enjoy
Maine’s natural beauty,
the doctors who sincerely
care for patients
and their families.
Through a dozen doctors
and their stories
about their patients,
McPhee effectively
conveys his idea that
doctors should interact
with their patients,
rather than arrogantly
show their authority
and knowledge over
“diseases.”
McPhee opens the
collection with a short
piece on Ann Dorney,
a young doctor
who wanted to be a
family practitioner,
despite the advice of
many of her professors.
McPhee makes
a point of “captur[ing]
the essence of warmhearted
family medicine”,
emphasizing the
patients coming “in
through the door” of
G.P. clinics, explaining
how family practice
started. In another
piece, David Jones is far
from the stereotype of
doctors as we think of
them. He is a farmer,
a barn owner, and a
licensed physician
who practices healing
and counseling.
From the dialogues
with his patients, we
get the sense that
Jones is a doctor who
pursues “human to
human, doctor-patient
relationship[s],” who
cares not only about
his patients but their
families and their lives,
a doctor who is truly
concerned about the
smoking and drinking
of his patients, who
worries about delays
of harvest. He worries
about the child who is
so full of respect and
love toward his parents
that his “knees are
bright red from harvest
work” done in order to
buy them new wintercoats.
With idealism
and true happiness,
Dr. Jones says, “To have
a place like this was
always my dream. As a
physician, you can go
somewhere else and
make more money,
but you can’t live like
this. You walk up on
that knoll, you see Mt.
Katahdin. I’d love to be
a trapper in Alaska. This
is my compromise.” As
such, though earning
more money and fame,
living in a large city with
pleasure and comfort
are sometimes attractive,
Jones conveys that
there is true happiness
in the woods, where
fewer people, less
money, and less fame
follow. Furthermore,
he is cynical about a
too-modernized society.
“Technology is
rewarded in medicine,
it seems to me, and not
thinking.” How uninteresting
is it for specialists
like the urologist who
only talks to cystoscopies,
gastroenterologist
to gastroscopies,
and dermatologist to
biopsies?
According to another
doctor, “If you are
a cardiologist, you
know your patient has
a heart problem when
the patient comes
through the door.
When someone comes
to a family doctor, the
doctor is starting from
scratch. … The purpose
is to help people
in a deep and personal
way.” Of course, when
we consider that there
are billions of people
who die due to lack of
simple treatment, it is
not always possible for
every doctor to pursue
deep and human relationships
with every
patient. In a place
like Maine, sentiments
between doctors and
patients should not
disappear. And in this
industrialized society,
in which more people
are becoming mentally
sick from banal tasks
and pressures, we need
doctors like Jones and
Burstein who “deeply
cure” their patients.
Heirs of General Practice
well illustrates not only
doctors’ dreams, but
our dreams as well.
Heirs of General Prac
tice by John McPhee
Published by Farrar;
Straus & Giroux
Paperback:
0-374-51974-9;
$8.00US
From
Beginning
to End
by Kim Vigneau ‘11
Staff Writer
Squeak. Thump. Squeak
Squeak. Thump. The familiar
sounds of a basketball
game echo from the walls
of Sargent Gymnasium. Up
above, students, faculty,
family, and fans look eagerly
at what is happening right
below them. Among the
crowd is Horace “Hockey”
Field, Hebron Academy
class of 1931. He watches
the game intently inside the
brand new gym, cheering
on his classmates. Sargent’s
illustrious history has just
begun.
Freelan Stanley, a trustee
of the Academy for thirty
years, invented the Stanley
Steamer. Freelan, along
with his twin brother, also
founded the Stanley Motor
Carriage Company, which
produced its first car in 1896
and successfully continued
until the 1910’s, when the
brothers had to accept the
obsolescence of their now
antique engine because of
the internal
combustion
engine. In
1917, the
company
was sold,
but Freelan
Stanley’s
legacy was
not over.
In 1923,
the trustees
had
started the
“Hebron
Memorial Campaign” in
order to build a gymnasium
to honor William E. Sargent,
headmaster of Hebron for
over thirty years. Freelan
Stanley had already built the
aptly-named Stanley Arena,
and Sargent Gymnasium
was designed and financed
by Stanley himself. In 1929,
the dedication was celebrated
and not soon after the
games began!
photo by Seung Yeon Kang ‘11
The gym was designed
with a squash court, a
swimming pool, a basketball
court, a stage, and a
prototype of the modern
baseball batting cage. The
new gym was unlike any
other building on campus
at the time it was built. The
swimming pool was the first
in New England, and murals
by Harry Cochrane adorned
the walls. The stage created
a whole new platform on
which Hebron drama would
perform. The 1933 production
of “Submerged” drew
large crowds, and the student-directed
one act plays,
which are still popular today,
were born.
Back to the game.
Horace watches,
cheering on the Big
Green, only now
they’re called the
Lumberjacks. And
the game isn’t in
Sargent Gym. The
year is now 2009,
and Horace Field,
class of 1931, sits
in the brand new
athletic center,
the Sargent Gym
of our generation. As he
once walked through the
rooms of the newly built
Sargent, he now tours the
just finished walkways of
the athletic center. Much
like trustee Freelan Stanley’s
Stanley Motor Carriage
company, Sargent Gymnasium
is now obsolete as an
athletic center, but has been
reborn as the Lepage Center
for the Arts. Well-designed
classrooms for sculpture,
pottery, and painting classrooms
have been added,
along with a darkroom and
a kiln. Not yet realized is the
450 seat auditorium in the
very same place that Horace
watched the Big Green play
basketball all those years
ago.
Two new buildings in two
very different times that,
for Hebron Academy, mean
both a new history to be
made and an old one to
remember. One can hope
that our generation will
have its own Horace Field,
someone who is there for
it all. While Sargent is no
longer Hebron’s main athletic
facility, its history will
be ours forever.
Beat that Stress - Quotations
Here’s a two step formula for handling stress. Step number one: Don’t sweat the small stuff. Step number two: Remember, it’s all small stuff.—Anthony Robbins
Stressed spelled backwards is desserts.—Barbara Enberg
Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one.—Hans Selye
Stress: The confusion created when one’s mind overrides the body’s basic desire to choke the living daylights out of some jerk who desperately deserves it.—Anonymous
In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.—Lee Iacocca
The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.—Jim Goodwin
Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you.—John De Paola
Relaxation means releasing all concern and tension and letting the natural order of life flow through one’s being.—Donald Curtis
Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important.—Natalie Goldberg
Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.—Robert J. Sawyer
Source from NewsletterFiller.com