Well-Known Author Kicks Off Speaker Series The author and healer: Verghese, his books In April the Department of Health Policy Studies celebrated its official commencement with the inaugural lecture of the Health Policy and Humanities Speaker Series. Physician Abraham Verghese, award-winning author of My Own Country and The Tennis Partner, came to campus for a daylong series of activities topped off by his public lecture, "The Making of Meaning in a Medical Life." The visit was cosponsored by the School of HS&HP, the Ithaca College Gerontology Institute, Office of Multicultural Affairs, and Office of the Provost. Verghese’s work transcends disciplinary boundaries, much like the interdisciplinary new HPS department does with its inclusion of medicine, health care, and humanities topics. Verghese’s work is recognized not merely for its medical content or descriptions of a doctor’s world, but for its discussion of the enormous complexities involved in human healing and human relationships. His readers are stimulated to think beyond the narrowness of their own disciplines and to consider what is most vulnerable, emotional, fallible, and remarkable about being a healer, patient, or administrator. "His writing," says HPS department chair Stewart Auyash, "illuminates the magic and art of medicine while sharing the profound realities of bearing witness to human suffering, curiosity, and joy. From Abraham Verghese we learn that health is more than medicine --- more than lab results, statistical probabilities, and reimbursement rates. We learn that healing is fundamentally the art of observation and the use of intellectual acuity to interpret observations in a meaningful way. In the extraordinary case of Dr. Verghese, he is also able to eloquently record what he learns and to share it openly in his compassionate and elegantly crafted writing." Verghese is currently a professor of medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, where he has been since 1991. He was born in Ethiopia to expatriate Indian parents, who worked there for 35 years as teachers. Verghese began his medical education in Ethiopia. He first came to the United States in 1973 and worked as an orderly in New Jersey hospitals and nursing homes. He completed his medical education in India and returned to the United States in 1980. His first medical appointments were as resident, then chief resident in medicine at East Tennessee State University College of Medicine. He moved to Boston in 1983 --- at a time when the country and the world were first learning about a new disease that seemed to be affecting gay men in large cities --- to serve as a fellow in infectious diseases at Boston University School of Medicine. From 1986 until 1990 he was back in eastern Tennessee, specializing in the treatment of infectious diseases, notably AIDS. He chronicled this early time in the AIDS epidemic as well as his work and personal life in My Own Country, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award that was also named one of Time’s five best books of 1994 and made into a film. In 1998 Verghese published The Tennis Partner, a moving personal account of his relationship with his dear friend and medical student David Smith, who struggled with a longtime cocaine habit and eventually committed suicide. Verghese has also written more than 75 professional articles in medical journals, 19 chapters in medical texts, 26 abstracts and proceedings, almost 40 short works of fiction, essays, and book reviews. A popular public speaker, he has been awarded the Nicholas Davies Humanitarian Award by the American College of Physicians and has won awards for excellence in teaching numerous times. Important Reminders Verghese’s visit to our campus helped remind us that medicine and health are more than managed care, marketing, and insurance reimbursement claims. "He is a special kind of healer," says Auyash, "who uses medicine to help us find the generous humanity in each of us." Verghese conducted two master classes. The first, which he called "From Page to Screen: Representing the Medical Life," focused on My Own Country and its transformation from real life to book to film. Students and faculty from cinema, writing, and health policy studies attended the class and heard Verghese, who also holds an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa writing program, discuss his ideas of how medical schools tend to encourage a "machismo attitude," which, he says, "separates doctors from their patients and focuses too much on the ‘concept of cure,’ neglecting the empathy" that is often a necessary part of healing. He also discussed the tender relationships he had with many of his gay AIDS patients. From them, he says, he learned about the possibilities of intense male friendship instead of "men posturing with each other just to be attractive to women." The afternoon master class was called "Medicine and the Humanities: Really Caring in a High-Tech Medical World." The doctor discussed with students the importance of understanding the relationship between belief and healing. "Belief," Verghese told them, never be neglected as a contributing factor" in recovery. He reminded health administration students to listen to patients and to reject the modern model of keeping administrators distant from patients. "Do not be seduced by the corporate look," he warned them. "Walnut desks, diamond watches, and fancy cars will not make you a better administrator. Listening to patients will." During his public lecture that evening, Verghese read humorous and emotional passages from My Own Country. The focus, however, was on what he called "the meaning of life" for a health professional, which, he argued, is in the relationships health professionals have with friends, family, and patients. Contemporary American medical education, he said, goes so far as to teach that "doctors who develop friendships with patients are weak and too emotionally involved." Verghese turns that notion on its head --- and teaches his students that to know a patient is the first step necessary to the healing process.
	Table of Contents | ICQ | ITHACA

A. Ozolins, Ithaca College Office of Publications, 27. Nov. 2001