Literary Gems on Medical Topics

Gene Stollerman

Wednesdays, Noon - 2:00 p.m.
September 29 - November 17, 2004
D.O.C. House

We will read and discuss some literary gems that I have used in teaching medical subjects to patients and physicians. They will include:

1. “The Science of Deduction,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (Cocaine addiction)
2. “Medical Detectives,” Berton Roueche (Diagnosis and listening to patients).
3. “The Lives of a Cell,” Lewis Thomas. (Humanistic lessons from biology).
4. “The Death of Ivan Ilyitch,” Leo Tolstoy. (Death and denial).
5. “The Plague,” Albert Camus. (Human behavior in social disaster).

Because Tolstoy and Camus will require advance reading time, we will start the first three sessions with the "easier" shorter stories by Conan Doyle, Lewis Thomas and Berton Roueche. Tolstoy and Camus will require two sessions each. We will leave the last session as optional for overall commentaries.

Class is limited to 20 participants

Gene Stollerman graduated Dartmouth College in 1941 and Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in 1944. He held an endowed professorship in infectious and rheumatic diseases at Northwestern University and then chaired the University of Tennessee's Department of Medicine for seventeen years. In 1981, he joined Boston University as Professor of Medicine and Public Health to initiate programs in geriatrics and health services research. Emeritus since 1995, he returned to Hanover where he continues to teach, edit and write.