One Breath Apart

Sandra L. Bertman, founding Director of the Medical Humanities Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, is a clinician who has pioneered the use of the arts and humanities to help healthcare professionals understand the psychology of loss and the existential and spiritual concerns of patients, family members, and themselves.

Foreword, Jack Coulehan, MD

Prologue: Sharing a UMASS Medical School Tradition

Dissection and Reflection: Variations of the Module

—Anticipating Dissection: Template

—Inaugural Session: Facing Dissection

—History of Dissection

—Relevance to Patient Care

—Anatomical Gift Program

—Meeting the Cadaver

— Coping Styles (Illustrated Lecture Presentations)

—Anatomy Lesson in Art and Dance

—The Art and Science of Medicine

—Michelangelo’s Morgue Experiences

— Student Service of Thanksgiving for Body Donors

— A Graduation Tradition

Medical Students Meet Cadavers

—The room was both a morgue and a classroom

—I’m more uncomfortable having to draw than having to dissect

—Words cannot describe what it is like

—Our bodies are our cheat sheets

—I like the Buddhist notion of death and the body

—I wonder what her life was like

—Cut me I will not bleed

—The power of habit

—I’ll never forget Doc, as we called him

Epilogue: Reflections and Connections

—The UMass Community cares for its dead

—Memorial Service

—Student Eulogies and Family Members’ Responses

—Coda: The Web of Life

References

Acknowledgments