Wallis Wilde - Menozzi
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Medicine and communicationWriting "Mother Tongue" led me into another world. Readers made contacts and connections grew. One kind of new work for me is working on subjects like death and dying. One essay I wrote has been published by the Italian Association of Child Cardiopathology. It is called "Finding the Words". I continue to teach seminars to doctors helping them to locate their feelings about taking care of patients. A seminar given to Mayo Clinic alumnae turned out to be, in the words of a participant, "the most important workshop I have ever attended." Doctors touched their own feelings about dying. They touched experiences beneath their professional preparation. I teach doctors who are being formed to become pediatricians by the University of Parma. The subject of communication is crucial to handling lives when they are at their most vulnerable. |
 This butterfly is a symbol of many things including the beauty and brevity of life. In workshops with doctors I encourage them to explore their experiences as doctors, to move from thinking in purely scientific terms to other dimensions in healing. ACTA BIOMEDICA JOURNAL In the spring 2008 volume, you can find an essay that encourages doctors to write about their experience. The exercises can lead to clarifying problems in communication, to understand better issues at work, and to approach feelings of hope and dispair in everyday medical practice. |
