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Not Your Ordinary Heaven
Published in Joi Andreoli, The Recovery Cycle, 2023
The awe—as I experience it as a recovering person—comes from the realization that I am fundamentally okay and that I—that we—are not alone in our experiences, feelings, and especially in our suffering. This experience of wonder and “okayness” comes from feeling and thinking we are profoundly connected to each other—and to everything. We are a wave in slow motion in a big ocean.
Conclusion and Beginnings
Published in Michael van Manen, The Birth of Ethics, 2020
From a philosophical point of view, there is a third narrative for understanding the phenomenon and beginning of ethics, and that is the experience of wonder in the face of the other. Ultimately, the experience of life and the ethical as starting from nothingness is just as full of wonder as the alterity of the other that cannot be explained by reducing it to the self or to presence. While cosmology begins with nothingness, phenomenology begins with otherness. Both the empirical science of the nothing and the existential ontology of the other are equally mysterious. The birth of ethics happens in the encounter of the self with the face of the other, says Levinas (1969/1961).
Cognitive symptoms related to memory
Published in Aurora Lassaletta, Ruth Clarke, The Invisible Brain Injury, 2019
I’ll read a book and very quickly forget the details. I remember books more easily when I connect with them emotionally, perhaps not the content but the feelings they transmit. The one that springs to mind was the first book I managed to read after three years; it was my challenge and I loved it, although it was emotionally tough. It was The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. At the time of writing, I was reading Wonder by R. J. Palacio in English, which I had read in Spanish the previous summer and loved. I do remember what it’s about, the characters and the emotions, but because I can’t remember the details, it feels like reading a new book. The same thing often happens with films. To make an effort to remember them, sometimes I try to give someone a summary of the book or film at the end. Writing the summary down would be a good tactic but I’m still not in the habit.
Care as a creative practice: comics, dementia and graphic medicine
Published in Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine, 2023
Sathyaraj Venkatesan, Livine Ancy A.
Elsewhere, Walrath observes, ‘often the “internal governor” of people with Alzheimer’s also disappears: they say exactly what’s on their mind. This disappearance lets new things appear’ (Walrath, 2013, p. 11). However, to understand Alice’s new self and infer her perspectives, Dana draws on flexible and interpretive creative practices. Walrath notes, ‘hiding has always been Alice’s friend. As a child, I didn’t understand her distorted affinity to all things blond’ (p. 17). For Dana, Alzheimer’s becomes a portal to explore Alice’s uncharted territory and open herself to wonder. Wonder ‘invites us to suspend what we think about personality patterns, brain scans and stages of the disease. It invites us into a state of curiosity in which we can assume that meaningful expression and connections are possible’ (Basting, 2020, p. 114). Here, Alice’s cognitive recession is a chance for Walrath to explore the history of Alice’s Armenian background. She also witnesses the traces of Armenian culture in Alice. In the chapter titled ‘Missing Pieces’ Walrath observes, Alzheimer’s drives Alice ‘to says, ‘I look awful.’ But other times, blond values disappear. She comes down from her room for dinner with necklaces and vibrant scarves around her shoulders, strands of beads woven through her hair. She feels lovely like an Armenian princess’ (Walrath, 2013, p. 17).
Capacity for wonder among medical students: Assessment and educational implications
Published in Medical Teacher, 2023
Gail Geller, Seonho Shin, Harry Goldberg, Maria W. Merritt
Despite these limitations, we believe our findings are robust and likely to be replicable in other medical schools and perhaps even among clinicians at different levels of training and practice. The strengths of our study extend beyond its likely replicability. First, ours is the first study that quantifies the capacity for wonder among medical students and its variation across different years of medical school. Second, we have identified a trait that may influence the development of other important personal characteristics and character dispositions of medical students. We and others have argued elsewhere that the capacity for wonder is linked to enhanced empathy, tolerance for ambiguity, humility, curiosity and leadership (Evans 2016; Geller et al. 2018; Hansen and Jørgensen 2021), traits that are highly valued in medical education and practice (Atkinson 1984; Spencer 2004; Dyche and Epstein 2011; Geller 2013; Gruppen 2014; Ekman and Krasner 2017; Hayden 2017; Geller et al. 2021; Reis-Dennis et al. 2021). In light of these arguments, we believe it is likely that efforts to cultivate medical students’ capacity for wonder will support the development of these other characteristics.
One Patient, No Good Options: The Real Roots of Ambivalence in Medical Decision Making
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2022
Many of the scenarios the authors provide likewise misidentify what is actually at stake in these types of cases. To take just the first few vignettes, the authors give their patients the following choices: LVAD or hospice; amputation or death; knowing or not knowing about an incurable neurodegenerative disease; surgery or chemo/radiation in the setting of a malignant brain tumor. When written so starkly, is it any wonder that patients can’t decide which option they “want” or even “prefer”? Focusing on the inability to choose in an impossible situation ignores the actual issue these individuals must confront, that these really are “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenarios with each option having very real, very serious, and—importantly—very negative consequences. There is no decision these patients can make without something untenable, maybe even unfathomable, occurring.