What We Bring to the Practice of Medicine

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• Médecine

Informations

• Publié par: Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 04 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781631014956
• Langue: English

Extrait

WHAT WE BRING TO THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE
LITERATURE AND MEDICINE
  1 Literature and Aging: An Anthology Edited by Martin Kohn, Carol Donley, and Delese Wear
  2 The Tyranny of the Normal: An Anthology · Edited by Carol Donley and Sheryl Buckley
  3 What’s Normal? Narratives of Mental and Emotional Disorders · Edited by Carol Donley and Sheryl Buckley
  4 Recognitions: Doctors and Their Stories Edited by Carol Donley and Martin Kohn
  5 Chekhov’s Doctors: A Collection of Chekhov’s Medical Tales · Edited by Jack Coulehan
  6 Tenderly Lift Me: Nurses Honored, Celebrated, and Remembered Jeanne Bryner
  7 The Poetry of Nursing: Poems and Commentaries of Leading Nurse-Poets Edited by Judy Schaefer
  8 Our Human Hearts: A Medical and Cultural Journey · Albert Howard Carter III
  9 Fourteen Stories: Doctors, Patients, and Other Strangers · Jay Baruch
10 Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies · Edited by Sayantani DasGupta and Marsha Hurst
11 Wider than the Sky: Essays and Meditations on the Healing Power of Emily Dickinson · Edited by Cindy Mackenzie and Barbara Dana
12 Lisa’s Story: The Other Shoe Tom Batiuk
13 Bodies and Barriers: Dramas of Dis-Ease · Edited by Angela Belli
14 The Spirit of the Place: A Novel Samuel Shem
15 Return to The House of God: Medical Resident Education 1978–2008 Edited by Martin Kohn and Carol Donley
16 The Heart’s Truth: Essays on the Art of Nursing · Cortney Davis
17 Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease Edited by Holly J. Hughes
18 The Country Doctor Revisited: A Twenty-First Century Reader Edited by Therese Zink
19 The Widows’ Handbook: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival Edited by Jacqueline Lapidus and Lise Menn
20 When the Nurse Becomes a Patient: A Story in Words and Images · Cortney Davis
21 What’s Left Out · Jay Baruch
22 Roses in December: An Alzheimer’s Story · Tom Batiuk and Chuck Ayers
23 Mysterious Medicine: The Doctor-Scientist Tales of Hawthorne and Poe Edited by L. Kerr Dunn
24 Keeping Reflection Fresh: A Practical Guide for Clinical Educators Edited by Allan Peterkin and Pamela Brett-MacLean
25 Human Voices Wake Us · Jerald Winakur
26 Learning to Heal: Reflections on Nursing School in Poetry and Prose Edited by Jeanne Bryner and Cortney Davis
27 From Reading to Healing: Teaching Medical Professionalism through Literature · Edited by Susan Stagno and Michael Blackie
28 The Health Humanities and Camus’s The Plague · Edited by Woods Nash
29 So Much More Than a Headache: Understanding Migraine through Literature · Edited by Kathleen J. O’Shea
30 What We Bring to the Practice of Medicine · Edited by Kimberly Greene-Liebowitz and Dana Corriel
What We Bring to the Practice of Medicine
Perspectives from Women Physicians
Edited by KIMBERLY GREENE-LIEBOWITZ and DANA CORRIEL


THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Kent, Ohio
© 2023 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-60635-449-0
Published in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever, without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of short quotations in critical reviews or articles.
Cataloging information for this title is available at the Library of Congress.
27  26  25  24  23  5  4  3  2  1
To Mom and Dad, Two beautiful souls without whom I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Love, Dana

To Gary, Hannah & Max, Who tolerated late nights and missed dinners, mostly without complaint. Love, Kim

And thank you to all the women who so generously shared their stories for this compilation: we could not have done this without you!
Contents
Introduction
OVERCOMING THE ODDS
Why Do You Want to Be a Doctor? · Maria Maldonado
Leverage · Photine Liakos
Learning to Listen · Audrey Nath
First to Report · Kimberly Greene-Liebowitz
IT’S ALL ABOUT COMPASSION
The Every Patient · Jazbeen Ahmad
Grandma’s Dead · Rebecca Andrews
Good Friday · Photine Liakos
If You Like Piña Coladas · Julia Michie Bruckner
Put a Bow on It · Photine Liakos
FINDING HUMOR IN UNEXPECTED PLACES
Halloween Blood · Rachel Kowalsky
There’s No Laughing in Medicine · Jessi Gold
Attempted Murder · Jennifer Caputo-Seidler
TMB Disease · Jill Grimes
Up North · Katie Wiskar
BRAVERY: FACING OUR FEARS
Filing Cabinet · S.P.
Chrysalis · Rebecca Andrews
My Doctor-Patient Conflict · Sharon Ben-Or
How I Found My Voice · Karen Yeter
Serendipity · Torie Comeaux Plowden
Pandemic · Katharine Miao
SURPRISE
No Small Feat · Avni Desai
A Life Saved · Andrea Eisenberg
The Twist of a Patient Apology · Dana Corriel
The Secret Keeper · Dawn Harris Sherling
SADNESS AND GRIEF
A Good Death · Teja Dyamenahalli
Sometimes, I Help People Die · Kimberly Greene-Liebowitz
For Better · Heather Gooden
Choosing to Die · Suzy Feigofsky
“What Do You Do, Mommy?” An Oncologist Answers · Shikha Jain
BALANCING ACT: PHYSICIAN PARENTS
The Transition from Doctor to Mom · Sasha K. Shillcutt
Forty Is Greater Than Twelve · Rohini Harvey
Sometimes Doctor Mom Is Just Mom · Jasmine R. Marcelin
Doctor Mothers · Monica Kalra
INSPIRATIONAL STORIES
Pink Panties · Elisabeth Preston-Hsu
Selfless Service · Torie Comeaux Plowden
Game On · Annette K. Ansong
The Perfect Birth · KrisEmily McCrory
Precious · Heather Hammerstedt
Contributors
Index
Introduction
KIMBERLY GREENE-LIEBOWITZ
What We Bring to the Practice of Medicine is a collection of essays intended to entertain and inspire readers and to motivate some to seek careers in medicine. These writings illustrate what we’ve learned from our experiences and what we bring to the practice of medicine, and add to the body of literature from other female physician writers, which dates back nearly two thousand years. Whether due to human nature or something more mutable, many of the overarching concerns of female physicians have not changed over time: clinical practice, the physician-patient relationship, career advancement, domestic responsibilities, work-life balance, bias and harassment, and barriers to success. Of course, the details have evolved. For example, burnout, a significant issue, wasn’t even a term applied to professionals until 1974, and even then, it was used more generally for “caring professionals,” not just physicians. 1
Consider domestic responsibilities, which are noticeably gendered. Women, including physicians, are responsible for a disproportionate share of childcare, elder care, and miscellaneous housework. 2 This gap widened during the COVID-19 pandemic; as a result, female physicians reduced their work hours, research, and pursuit of leadership opportunities. 3 These commitments—and the desire for one’s own family—have been long known to affect women’s professional choices, including their areas of specialization and their decisions to work part- or full-time. 4 In the long term, these choices can lead to lower reimbursement, fewer opportunities for advancement, and a sense of divided loyalties. Regardless of a practitioner’s specialty, her family planning can be hampered by a career in medicine. Female physicians have higher rates of infertility, miscarriage, and preterm delivery than women in the general population. 5 Further, fertility decreases around age thirty-two—which is, for most women, right when training concludes and medical careers are launched. Shift work, including nights, and physically demanding work are known to have negative effects on pregnancy in nonphysicians as well. 6
Conversely, these same issues—family, work-life balance, career selection—lead to continual growth. Caring for elderly parents and adult children is rewarding, as is parenting, which is “joyful and meaningful” and stimulates personal growth. 7 Many female physicians write about this interplay, demonstrating that clinical practice enriches their personal lives and personal experiences inform their patient care. This leads to rich and rewarding interactions with patients and improved family relationships.
Most nonfiction from female physicians touches on multiple issues, though a good discussion of the personal-professional dynamic can be found in Suzanne Koven’s memoir, Letter to a Young Female Physician: Thoughts on Life and Work, published to critical acclaim in 2021. She reflects on her four decades in medicine, including the decision to work part-time to balance work and personal responsibilities, the impact her medical experience had on her interactions with her aging parents, and her own experience with imposter syndrome. 8 In a similar vein, Judy Melinek’s career choice reflects a need to better balance work and life. Originally a general surgery resident, she switched to pathology, and took a position at the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Her 2014 memoir, Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner chronicles her time at the medical examiner’s office, and her experiences working in the 9/11 morgue tents. Melinek describes the experience as “[freeing us] from our six o’clock news phobias … nearly every unexpected fatality was either the result of something dangerously mundane, or of something predictably hazardous.” 9
In this collection, a number of authors explore similar issues. Rohini Harvey and Sasha Shillcutt detail the balancing act of parenting in “Forty Is Greater Than Twelve” and “The Transition from Doctor to Mom”; Rebecca Andrews and Jasmine Marcelin are parents first in “Chrysalis” and “Sometimes Doctor Mom Is Just Mom”; and Katharine Miao struggles to care for aging parents remotely in “Pandemic.”
The barriers to professional success feature prominently in the writings of many female physicians. In many ways, women enjoy unprecedented access to medical careers: there are no longer rules preventing them from obtaining medical degrees or licenses or membership in profes