Painted Nails and Personal Narratives - Thompson Writing Program

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justifies my undergraduate education. But before you cast me as some overly defensive bookworm, I’d like to clarify: the purpose of this essay isn’t to rationalize my choice in majors (though it’s certainly an added bonus)—it’s to change the mentality of those who assume that a doctor’s worth is measured solely in her MCAT scores and stethoscope skills. This assumption is an increasingly common one—biology and chemistry rank as the most popular majors for medical school applicants. Such an overt bias towards the sciences was not always the case; a medical school address delivered a century ago encouraged physicians-in-training to pursue studies in not only English, but also French and German literature (Williams 1067). Although re - search reveals that humanities majors make just as competent — and often, as one Journal of Medical Education study found, even more competent — physicians later in their lives, the myth prevails: science people are tougher, smarter, and ultimately better doctors (Yens 434). I stepped into a pre-medical advising meeting a few months ago and found myself met with surprise. When one friend ex - claimed “But I thought you were an English major!” I slipped into my seat, ego bruised. My medical aspirations served as a secret identity; underneath the façade of the mild-mannered bookworm lay a purpose-driven pre-med. Like a Clark Kent caught changing in a telephone booth, I felt exposed whenever my two sides showed. Yet I’m not the first to draw a link between literature and medicine. Several physicians have thrived both in the ward and at the writer’s desk, including literary giants like Chekov, William Carlos Williams, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and even Jurassic-Park-creator Michael Crichton (Fanning 1 and Howard 82). Even so, when the number of college students studying humanities has declined by over fifty percent in four decades, it’s clear that the doctor-writer tradition, along with the study of literature itself, is in danger (Cohen). The wailings of English professors and Literature majors alike may sound familiar — bemoaning the state of one’s subject is as clichéd a part of the humanities tradition as quoting Shakes - peare or wearing sports coats with elbow patches. Yet as one professor points out, “people in the hu - manities…have never felt quite as much of a panic that their field is becoming irrelevant” as they do today (qtd. in Cohen). Irrelevance. Ay, there’s the rub. No one who wants to function at cocktail parties will accuse the works of Dostoevsky of worthlessness, but in an increasingly digitized, economized, and supersized world, it’s far too easy to see them as irrelevant. I hesitate when telling people I’m an English major — the phrase “cardboard box,” and, more specifically, the image of me living in it, springs far too easily to mind. No wonder, then, that those with doctoring dreams often see reading and writing as frivolous, even self-indulgent. The understanding is this: the mushy-gushy of literature is all very well and good, but when a surgeon hovers above your tumor, scalpel in hand, it doesn’t matter what books she reads. If my examination of creative nonfiction in medicine has accomplished anything, though, it proves that it does. And while many doctors may scoff at the idea that literature could improve their medical practice, learning how to read narratives might help their bottom lines. Eighty percent of those who file for malpractice point to problems caused by superficial or insufficient communication between their physicians and themselves (Hojat 522). If doctors were to adopt the perspectives of those they care for, they would leave their patients — not to mention their pocketbooks—in a far happier state. Nevertheless, in the face of ever more crippling malpractice insurance, the once-sacred and nowstrained relationship between doctor and patient has begun to crumble. Medical students without narrative empathy become doctors without narrative empathy, and their focus is on “curing, not caring” (De Moor 212). The “good doctor” is one who analyzes the symptoms, makes the biological connections, and defeats the disease; in the face of all this hard science, patients necessarily become numbers, subjects, goals. The public, then, accuses their doctors of being too distant, and doctors accuse the public of being too demanding. There is no easy solution; goodness knows that even the most powerful of personal essays will not fix the fact that scores of Americans receive subpar treatment, if they re - ceive it at all. A society’s healthcare — scientifically overwhelming, economically burdensome, and forever and ever evolving — may always remain a perpetually — and perhaps necessarily — frustrating beast. Still, improving medicine begins with the cultivation of a new philosophy of healing, one that sees the patient as an individual with a history, a heart, and most importantly, a story. Creative nonfiction will not solve all of our problems, but it certainly gives us a tool with which to start. This essay, then, is not simply a grand justification of my classes, my major, or my nerdy libraryleech tendencies. It’s my own desperate attempt to awaken the medical (and, for that matter, pre-medical) community to the ability of the personal narrative to heal some of the rifts in modern medicine and in turn provide for better care. Repairing the increasingly strained relationship between doctors and their patients does not begin with more innovative treatment techniques or more extensive medical research. After all, critics of physicians rarely claim that they have too little medical knowledge. Instead, 59
60 Medical students without narrative empathy become doctors without narrative empathy, and their focus is on “curing, not caring.” those who distrust their doctors do so because the white coat in front of them doesn’t seem to understand what it means to be a patient. In short, we don’t need more science in medicine—we need more humanity. This is where reading and writing creative nonfiction comes in. After all, doctors understand individual bodies, but readers and writers understand individual consciousnesses, the souls that make us more than bags of bones and blood. Recognizing the stories of other people—real people, with painted nails and an insatiable Better Homes and Gardens obsession — encourages physicians to reflect, empathize, and listen in a way that nothing else can. I know that’s what it did for me. � Works Cited Abraham, A., and DY von Cramon. “Reality = Relevance? Insights from Spontaneous Modulations of the Brain’s Default Network when Telling Apart Reality from Fiction.” PLOS One 4.3 (2009): 1-9. Print. Barclay, Laurie. “Confronting Physician Depression and Suicide: A Newsmaker Interview With Morton M. Silverman, MD.” MedScape. 17 June 2003. Web. 25 Apr. 2010. Charon, Rita. “The Sources of Narrative Medicine.” Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. Print. Cohen, Patricia. “In Tough Times, the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth.” The New York Times. NY Times Online, 25 Feb. 2009. Web. 19 Apr. 2010. DasGupta, Sayantani. “Being John Doe Malkovich: Truth, Imagination, and Story in Medicine.”Literature and Medicine 25.2 (2006): 439-462. Print. De Moor, Katrien. “The Doctor’s Role of Witness and Companion: Medical and Literary Ethics of Care in AIDS Physicians’ Memoirs.” Literature and Medicine 22.2 (2003): 208-229. Print. Fanning, Micheal. “A Doctor, Writer, and Poet.” Irish Medical Times. 29 June 2007, Lifestyle sec. Web. 19 Apr. 2010. Haley, Mick. “Socially Awkward? Hit the Books.” Globe and Mail, 10 July 2008. Web.15 Apr. 2010. Hartman, Geoffrey H. “Narrative and Beyond.” Literature and Medicine 23.2 (2004): 334-345. Print. Hojat, M., et al. “Empathy in Medical Students as Related to Academic Performance, Clinical Competence and Gender.” Medical Education 36.6 (2002): 522-527. Print. Howard, Sue N. “A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams.” Library Media Connections 27.5 (2009): 82. EBSCO Host. Web. 5 July 2010. Nevalainen, M.K., et al. “Facing Uncertainty as a Medical Student-A Qualitative Study of their Reflective Learning Diaries and Writings on Specific Themes during the First Clinical Year.” Patient Education & Counseling 78.2 (2010): 218-223. Print. Reichert, Julie, et al. “Narrative Medicine and Emerging Clinical Practice.” Literature & Medicine 27.2 (2008)” 248-271. Print. Siegel, Bary J., and Faith T. Fitzgerald. “A Survey on the Prevalence of Alcoholism Among the Faculty and House Staff of an Academic Teaching Hospital.” Western Journal of Medicine 148 (1988): 593-95. Pub Med Central. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. Smith, Dinitia. “Medical Narratives: Diagnosis Goes Low Tech.” Generations 27.3 (2003): 55-57. Print. Shapiro, Johanna. “Doctors in the Making: Memoirs and Medical Education.” Literature & Medicine 28.1 (2009): 138-44. Web. 25 Apr. 2010. “Study: Doctor’s Empathy May Help Cure Cold Faster.” University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. 8 June 2009. Web. 26 Apr. 2010. Williams, John. “An Introductory Address on the Training of Body and Mind for the Profession of Medicine.” The British Medical Journal, 2.2076 (1900): 1065-9. Web. 25 Apr. 2010. Yens, D. P. and B. Stimmel. “Science Versus Nonscience Undergraduate Studies for Medical School—A Study of 9 Classes.” Journal of Medical Education 57.6 (1982): 429-435. Print.
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