In this essay, I look back at some of the earliest attempts by the first generation of literature-and-medicine scholars to answer the question: Why teach literature and medicine? Reviewing the development of the field in its early years, I examine statements by practitioners to see whether their answers have held up over time and to consider how the rationales they articulated have expanded or changed in the following years and why. Greater emphasis on literary criticism, narrative ethics, narrative theory, and (...) reflective writing has influenced current work in the field in ways that could not have been foreseen in the 1970s. The extraordinary growth of interest and work in the field nationally and, especially since 1996, internationally has included practitioners in many additional areas such as disability studies, film studies, therapeutic writing, and trauma studies. Along with the emergence of narrative medicine, this diverse community of scholars and practitioners—affiliated more through their use of narrative methodologies than the teaching of literature—makes the perennial challenge of evaluation and assessment even more complicated. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to encourage and help inform active discussion of authorship policies among members of scientific societies. The article explains the history and rationale of the influential criteria for authorship developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, examines questions about those criteria that emerge from authorship policies adopted by several U.S. medical schools, and summarizes the arguments for replacing authorship with the contributorguarantor model. Finally, it concludes with a plea for scientific societies to play (...) a prominent role in the ongoing debates about authorship and the alternatives as part of their efforts to encourage ethical conduct among their members. Whether or not scientific societies develop authorship policies of their own, they should undertake vigorous educational efforts to keep their new members adequately informed about the importance of authorship practices in ethical scientific research and publication. (shrink)

By 1999, when Atul Gawande's essay “Whose Body Is It, Anyway?” appeared in The New Yorker, patient autonomy had largely trumped physician paternalism in American medical practice. Gawande uses the stories of actual patients to attempt his counter case for physicians' “talking patients through their decisions.” Toward the end of his essay, Gawande acknowledges that “many ethicists find this line of reasoning disturbing,” but he reassures his readers that “the real task isn't to banish paternalism; the real task is to (...) preserve kindness.”What troubles me, however, is not so much the ethical position Gawande takes but the way he structures his narrative to support his position. “Whose Body Is It, Anyway?” offers an important example for close scrutiny because, in my experience, it so effectively engages readers‐especially medical students‐and persuades them to accept the ethical position it puts forward. Yet Gawande's own reflections about this issue do not stop with this essay. As he has gained clinical experience, he has continued his ethical reflections, and the stories that he tells have changed significantly over the years. I will argue here that close reading and careful narrative scrutiny can alert those who read this essay apart from Gawande's later work to some of the pitfalls in this kind of narrative ethics. (shrink)

We consider the moral and social ingredients in physicians' relationships with patients of diminished capacity by considering certain claims made about friendship and the physician's role. To assess these claims we look at the life context of two patients as elaborated examples provided in two novels: Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) by Marge Piercy, a radical feminist; and It's Hard to Leave While the Music's Playing (1977) by I. S. Cooper, a prominent physician-researcher. At issue is how the (...) doctor-patient relationship should be structured. In question is whether the physician's friendship and professional expertise, together with the diminished capacity of the patient, authorize medical paternalism. From our examination, we find compelling insights against appealing to friendship both in good doctor-patient relationships and in more typical, not-so-good ones. (shrink)

As last year's 200th anniversary celebrations of the first publication of Mary Godwin Shelley's novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus came to a close, it seemed there could be nothing that remained unsaid about the work and its enduring cultural influence. Academic conferences had begun two years earlier: in June 2016, the Brocher Foundation hosted one of the first international meetings to examine the importance of the novel for our time. The Brocher Foundation, situated in Hermance, Switzerland—just a few miles (...) along Lake Geneva from the Villa Diodati, the site in June 1816 of Mary Godwin's inspiration for her famous gothic tale—was the perfect place for such an event. Since... (shrink)