Interacting with the Medical Humanities

1. Distinguish between pain and suffering.

2. Identify key features of suffering, including social and psychological isolation.

3. Apply 'witnessing' to the alleviation of suffering.

4. Specify what limits and facilitates compassion.

5. Explain the role of story-telling in the healing process.

6. Discuss the reasons physicians tell stories.

7. Engage in the process of empathizing with the disabled.

8. Recognize problems both physicians and patients face in dealing with chronic disease.

9. Define characteristics of challenging patients.

10. Define strategies for caring for challenging patients.

Unit 4 Overview

	Section 1: Depression Exercise 1: Depression: The patient's experience -Poem: Jane Kenyon's "Having it out with melancholy" -Essay: William Styron's Darkness visible (excerpt) Exercise 2: Diagnosing depression -Video: Alec Anders: "The depressed patient" -Video: Jean Geuron, "Diagnosing depression" Exercise 3: Talking to patients about depression -Video: Jean Gueron, simulated interview -Novel: Walker Percy's The last gentleman (excerpt) Exercise 4: Approaches to treatment -Essay: Lewis' A general theory of love (excerpt) -Video: Jean Gueron: Exercise 5: What is memory? -Essay: Gilbert Maelander, "Why Remember?" Exercise 6: Approaches to therapy -Poem: Anne Sexton's The addict (excerpt) -Poem: David Hernandez' A brief history of antidepressants(excerpt) Exercise 7: Societal attitudes


	Section 2: The Experience of Illness Exercise 4: The body disabled -Dance: Chiao-Ping Li's Painkillers -Poem: Wislava Szymborkska's "The kindness of the blind" Exercise 5: Making sense of illness -Essay: Mary Swander's "The Fifth Chair" -Essay: Richard McCann's "To Whom it May Concern" -Poem: James McManus' Spike Logic Exercise 6: Living with chronic illness -Essay:Laura Hillenbrand's "A Sudent Illness"

	Section 3: Difficult Patients Exercise 7: What is a 'difficult patient'? -Video: Alec Anders' Patient with multiple unexplained symptoms Exercise 8: Dealing with 'difficult patients' -Video: Gueron's "The hostile patient"