Science and technology produced tremendous advances in health care over the past half century, but there's been a tendency in some quarters to lose touch with the human emotions of patients and medical providers alike.
Teaching hospitals are encouraging medical students to understand the patient as a person by using books and films to expand the concept of illness.
"They're trying to use (the arts) to help students understand what it's like to be sick in ways that textbooks can't do," said Alex Krach, an emergency nurse at Rogue Valley Medical Center.
Krach (pronounced Crash) decided it was time to bring some of that forward thinking to Southern Oregon. He organized a series of films and lectures on the theme of "humane medicine."
He says the programs provide an opportunity for health-care workers to discuss "areas of medicine we don't ordinarily explore, especially in rural areas."
The 40-year-old Ashland man is using movies to introduce topics and is following each film with a speaker. The first program began with a screening of "The Doctor," the story of a physician (played by William Hurt) who is diagnosed with throat cancer and has to learn to be a patient. After the movie, Dr. Ellen Corey, an emergency physician, shared her experiences as a cancer patient and answered questions from the audience.
"Films are what we start with to help an audience look at a situation," Krach said.
Corey said she noticed that as a patient, what mattered most were the smallest human interactions with her treatment team. A nurse's positive comment about her appearance, for example, made her feel better.
Being a patient also made her recognize how much of her personal identity had been connected with being a physician. "For 20 years I've been Dr. Corey," she said. "All of a sudden I'm Ellen Corey. That part of my identity evaporated."
On Tuesday, the series continues with a screening of "Shadowlands," the story of author C.S. Lewis' relationship with a woman who becomes seriously ill. After the film, Dr. Jon Brower, a cardiologist, will talk about the emotional life of the human heart.
Brower said cultures since antiquity have ascribed a unique spiritual and emotional importance to the heart, and contemporary language still connects the heart with emotions. We describe people as hard-hearted or big-hearted. We say someone has a change of heart, or speaks from the heart or died of a broken heart.
He noted that researchers have lately identified a condition known as "broken heart syndrome," associated with severe emotional distress, in which the symptoms appear to be those of a heart attack.
"It's further confirmation our emotions have a profound effect on our health," he said.
The series was funded with a $5,000 grant from the Asante Foundation's Skyrman Education Endowment. The grant allowed Krach to arrange a presentation Feb. 8 by Dr. Abraham Verghese, professor of medicine at Stanford University and the author of noted works of fiction and nonfiction. Verghese has been noted for emphasizing the relationship between patients and physicians.
"He trains doctors to talk to their patients instead of looking at their charts," Krach said.
Krach said the programs are designed primarily for health-care providers, but they're open to anyone.
"A huge value in what I'm trying to do is the story, the narrative of each person in the community who has been touched by illness," he said. "To me, that's all of us. So I want to reach every person that will, in a sense, reach back to me."
Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492 or e-mail bkettler@mailtribune.com. To see more of the Mail Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.mailtribune.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Mail Tribune, Medford, Ore. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Copyright (C) 2009, Mail Tribune, Medford, Ore.