The Clinic & The Person
The Clinic & The Person is a podcast bringing knowledge and perspectives from the humanities to certain aspects of biomedicine. “The Clinic” represents all that biomedicine brings to bear on diseases and treatments, and “The Person” represents all that people go through with health problems. Our episodes draw from works in the humanities—any genre—directly related to how people are affected by specific clinical events such as migraine headaches, epileptic seizures, and dementia, and by specific health care situations such as restricted access to care and gut-wrenching, life and death choices. We analyze and interpret featured works and provide thoughts on their applications in patient care; health professions education; clinical and population research; health care policy; and social and cultural trends and preoccupations. Often joining us are the creators of works we feature or experts on the topics we select.
The Clinic & The Person
A Lifespan the Length of a Dog’s: Illness as Loss in the Novel So Much For That
We consider “illness as loss” through three different scenarios from Lionel Shriver’s novel, So Much For That. The three scenarios are: sociopsychological, financial, and clinical. We focus on how the literary novel form isolates these scenarios and offers fully reflective accounts of how people can be affected by them. We also note how literary fiction can be the only or best medium for subjects often too sensitive for public forums such as whether money can be an object in health care decisions. We spend some time distinguishing illness as what people experience subjectively from a particular health problem, and disease as the pathophysiological basis for a particular health problem. Dan talks about how illness as loss is a useful concept for discerning the help people may need, and how using the word “loss” can be a valuable tool for helping them.
Citation:
Shriver L. So Much For That. New York; HarperCollins, 2010.
Links:
Russell Teagarden's blog pieces mentioned in the podcast:
- Review of So Much For That
- A comparison of biomedical and literary descriptions of familial dysautonomia
- Distinguishing disease, illness, and sickness
- Elements of illness
- Illness as loss
Recommendations:
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, by Jean-Dominique Bauby (memoir and movie)
- On His Blindness, John Milton, poem, recommended by inhouse rhetorician and literary editor, Alexis Teagarden
- Rick Beato interview with Keith Jarret, recommended by inhouse musical director and cultural editor, Benedict Teagarden
Please send us comments, recommendations, and questions to: russell.teagarden@theclinicandtheperson.com.
Thanks for listening, and please subscribe to The Clinic & The Person wherever you get your podcasts, or visit our website.
Executive producer: Anne Bentley
