Stylesheet ANNOTBIBLIOGRA

							                                             ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
                                           Available in web and print formats




WHAT IS THE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY?

This a valuable resource for Literature & Medicine facilitators, liaisons, council staff, and others
interested in learning more about readings that have been read in the Literature & Medicine program.
We have interested medical humanities practitioners from across the country visit our website, so this
resource will also reach the wider Literature & Medicine community.

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:

Please follow the format outlined & explained on the following pages when writing your annotations.
Save your annotations as a word document and email directly to your Humanities Council liaison. We
will add your comments to the on-line and print versions of the bibliography. Although space
considerations require your comments to be fairly concise, they should be fleshed out enough to give
someone unfamiliar with the reading a very good idea of how it worked for your group and its value
for the Lit & Med program. We will attribute your remarks to you, listing the state where you facilitate
for the program. Your comments will be edited as needed.



   •   Standard bibliography format – Pg. 2

   •   Sample bibliography entries – Pgs. 3 – 5

   •   Blank bibliography form – Pg. 6




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Standard bibliography format:

   Indicate appropriate category/ies it should be listed under
       [Please choose from one of our established categories:
          • The Experience of Illness/Fiction, Poetry, or Non-fiction
          • Being a Care Giver/Fiction, Poetry, or Non-fiction
          • Voices from the Edge/Fiction, Poetry, or Non-fiction
          • Social Perspectives and Policy/Fiction, Poetry, or Non-fiction]

   Author: last name, first name

   Title:

   Genre: (choose from-novel, short story, Personal narrative, Essay, Play,
    History/social commentary, Non-fiction, Music, Film …)

   Source: [for books: Publisher, year; for others: where article/poem/short story/essay
    was taken from]

   Summary: (A brief summary to give an idea of what it is about)

   Commentary:

   PLEASE INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING IN YOUR COMMENTARY:
      • Issues that the reading raised for the group;
      • What it was paired with;
      • The theme (if any) for the session;
      • Any helpful material (such as articles about the author) you recommend;
      • Your recommendations (i.e.-“ Better for a group that is well established because….”, “good
        first year reading”, “I would not recommend this reading because….”, “good to use if you want
        to focus on a family member’s perspective”, “Good reading but proved to be too long-could
        have been excerpted”.)
      • Your name and state in parenthesis at the end




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Sample bibliography entries:


The Experience of Illness/ Fiction
Salzman, Mark
Lying Awake
Novel
New York: Vintage, 2001.

A novel about a contemplative nun whose crisis of faith leads to visions that inspire her to write
powerful poetry, but who discovers that these visions are likely the result of a brain tumor that is
easily cured by surgery. See also: Salon.com online interview with Salzman, Jan. 10, 2001.

Commentary: This book raised many issues: What is disease? What is the nature of spirituality? Is a
cure always preferable to an illness? Participants especially admired the quality of the writing of this
short novel, as well as Salzman's sympathetic portrait of a religious woman-without any hint of
postmodern irony. What worked particularly well in the discussion was the issue of how Salzman
came to write the book, a process that took many years. He finally was able to finish it when he
acknowledged the similarity between himself and his subject: both, he felt, persisted because they
had faith-irrational and illogical though its foundations were. We talked at some length about how all
of us need that faith in what we're doing. I suggest that facilitators who use the book read some of
Salzman's interviews and the profile of him in The New Yorker, Vol. 76, Issue 29 (Oct. 2, 2000), p. 74.
(Margery Irvine, Maine)




                                                                                                       3
Being a Caregiver, Poetry
Davis, Courtney and Judy Schaefer, Eds.
Between the Heartbeats: Poetry and Prose by Nurses
Poetry, essays and fiction
Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1995.

A collection of poetry, essays, and short stories by and about registered nurses that has
inspired nurses all over the world. These works deal with care giving from nurses'
unique perspective. (Book also listed under “Being a Caregiver”, Non-Fiction)

Commentary: I'd highly recommend this collection as a way of demystifying poetry for
participants. The selections are uneven but the group I facilitate was inspired enough to try a
directed poetry-writing exercise as "homework" for the following meeting. (Eve Raimon,
Maine)

"The Body Flute" by Courtney Davis - This poem, the first reading the group discussed, was
a very interesting introduction: I was amazed by the diversity of opinion on this piece, which
focused on intimacy between nurse and patient, and loss/disappointment. Some readers
thought Davis was the ultimate in empathy; others found her utterly self-centered and aloof!
This made for an extremely interesting debate that helped our group get to know each other
and give each other permission to disagree. I think it set a great tone for how we would
"operate" and helped us bond quickly, despite differences of opinion. (Elayne Clift, Vermont)

In "The Body Flute, a nurse talks about how the dying and the dead belong to the nurse who
cares for them in a way they belong to no one else. This poem was especially popular for its
honesty about the sense of intimate possession and exclusivity the nurse feels towards the
dead. No one else performs the rites that she/he does. Successfully paired with Jerome
Groopman's essay "Dying Words" in discussing "Death and Dying." This poem gave rise to a
discussion about how the needs of the nurse to care for the dying in a way she/he sees as
fitting are sometimes at odds with what the family wants. (Francette Cerulli, Vermont)




                                                                                                  4
Being a Caregiver/ Non-fiction
Gawande, Atul
Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
Essays
New York: Henry Holt, 2002.

All of Gawande's essays focus on the hard work of making daily decisions about patient care.
A surgeon, he writes with great feeling about the mistakes he's made and the ones he's
observed. All of these appeared originally in The New Yorker.

Commentary: "When Doctors Make Mistakes"

We read this in a session on "Mistakes," along with Marianne Paget's A Complex Sorrow.
Gawande's essay, with its accessible combination of personal narrative and sociological
analysis, was easily accepted by the group as an accurate and insightful take on a worrisome
problem. Discussants all recognized that the culture of medicine assumes professionals can
and should routinely achieve perfection, even if that goal is not realistic. (Kathy Ashley,
Maine)

This honest, gutsy essay treats doctors as no more or less mistake-prone than the rest of
humanity. Using narratives from his own experience and observation, he looks analytically at
the failure of malpractice suits, at the value of weekly Morbidity and Mortality Conferences,
and at ways to revise medical procedures and technologies to prevent good doctors from
making mistakes. There was much discussion about the M&M, which in different hospitals
some members had experienced as valuable and others as vicious, and we discussed
Gawande's distinction between guilt (about an act that was wrong) and shame (feeling one's
self to be wrong). The discussion went on to the difficulties doctors have trying to read all
levels (words and body language) of a patient's message, trying to overcome their own
prejudices, and reacting to patients who "doctor shop." I paired it with Marianne Paget's A
Complex Sorrow, both of which treat errors as human and which find lawsuits ineffective in
lessening medical errors. This session was the only one in which both assigned writings got
equal time in the discussion. (Ann Fogg, Maine)




                                                                                                5
Blank bibliography form:


   Appropriate category/ies it should be listed under




   Author: last name, first name



   Title:



   Genre:



   Source:



   Summary:



   Commentary:




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