Becoming Medicine: When There is No Treatment, You Are the Medicine
Kosmos: Journal of Global Transformation
“In English, medicine is something that still needs to happen, but in Tiwa medicine is already there; it is a power. Every human being is a power. Originally, when we were brought into being, we were given the instructions. Part of life is that we would be given surprises along the way. It just comes upon you and you can’t prepare for it. …Wah-Mah-Chi, that is God’s name in the Tiwa language and it means Breath-Matter-Movement. All you need to know about the virus is to connect those three things, Breath-Matter-Movement, with your heart and lungs.”
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CLOSLER Articles
CLOSLER: Moving Us Closer to Osler - Johns Hopkins Medicine, Miller Coulson Academy of Clincal Excellence Initiative
A collection of blog posts from CLOSLER from Johns Hopkins
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The Journey Home
Parabola Magazine
Abridged version of the “Coming Home to Peace” chapter from, Walking the Medicine Wheel: Healing Trauma & PTSD.
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Whole Health for the Health of the Whole System
Mental Health and Family Medicine
“We started off focusing on the whole health of veterans and we ended up creating a community of energetic staff and clinicians who are concerned about the whole health of staff, the patient, and the entire system. In these days when provider burnout and stress are such an issue, this Whole Health class has been a panacea that is still working away to transform lives, care, and systems.”
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Recovering Hope, Poetry and Connection in Health Care
Center for Courage & Renewal
This concept of holding tension between opposites, rather than trying to have one opposite (e.g., hope) overpower the other opposite (e.g., despair) allows for a complex and systemic approach to complex and systemic problems. The idea of tension being life-giving rather than something to get rid of reminds me of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung's approach to the problem of opposites, that there is a “unifying third” that unites the opposites into a higher order of meaning.
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Do We Have to Choose Between Quality and Compassion?
Creating Human Work Environments
There are many trends in health care these days, two of which focus on quality and compassion within the system. One can even speak of a Quality Revolution, given the strong emphasis this concept is currently receiving. Quality focuses on issues such as efficiency, safety, evidence-based medicine, decreasing treatment variability, and cost-containment. Quality is a growing focus in both the UK and the US.
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Learning To Save the Self
Unpublished
This article is an expanded version of the presentation “Learning to Save the Self: Samuel Shem’s Portrayal of Trauma and Medical Education” which was given at the annual meeting of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Washington D.C, November, 1998. It examines the defense patterns that are typical of exposure to trauma that lead to dehumanization of the self of both the doctor and the patient. It also looks at Shem’s prescription for saving the self through preserving humanity and human connection.
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