Synapse, From the Hospital

Literature & Medicine: From the Hospital
by Dina McKelvy ::: bio

This edition’s guest columnist is Dina McKelvy, the liaison at Southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford, Maine.

Literature & Medicine People
In my Literature & Medicine encounters I sometimes fall into an us-them mentality — there are the “English-major” types (like me) and the “clinical” types. The clinical types read mostly non-fiction and they want answers. They resist ambiguity in their pursuit of information. English majors revel in ambiguity and seek it out. For the clinical types irony, unreliable narrators and deconstruction are obstacles in the path to a solution. For English majors they are cherished literary tools that thwart comfortable answers.

There is one behavior we have in common: we both love to analyze, analyze, analyze. Break things apart and look at the pieces. Make connections with other pieces. Produce a thesis. A diagnosis. Use the broken pieces to prove it.

Literature & Medicine challenges both types to go beyond the behaviors that make us different and those we have in common to share something that is more profound — our care and concern for humanity. Literature & Medicine elucidates the tension born of these different ways of looking at the world, and by doing so it enriches all who participate. Literature & Medicine people have the ability and courage to light the places of ambiguity and see that the whole of our humanity is so much greater than its broken parts.

From the Hospital is a column for program liaisons. Submissions may report success stories, describe challenges, offer advice or pose questions relating to organizing and/or participating in Literature & Medicine seminars. Additionally, the editor welcomes any responses or reactions to pieces published in this column. To contact the editor, send an email to lizz@mainehumanities.org


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Literature & Medicine has received major support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.