Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T05:23:06.438Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Doctors and Dr. Seuss

Restoring the Patient’s Voice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2014

NATHAN CARLIN
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

In 2012, Dartmouth College renamed its medical school, founded in 1797, the Audrey and Theodor Geisel School of Medicine. Using the renaming of the medical school of Dartmouth College as a foil, I offer in this article a vision of what it might mean to align Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, with doctors by examining Geisel’s You’re Only Old Once! A Book for Obsolete Children. In this article, I derive four critiques of modern medicine from the book and offer four strategies as to how these critiques could be explored in medical education. If You’re Only Old Once! is read as a pathography, I argue that it can be used as a resource for medical education.

Keywords

Dr. Seussmedical educationpathographybioethics educationYou’re Only Old Once!
Type
Bioethics Education
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 113 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Pease, D. Theodor Seuss Geisel. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2010, at ix.Google Scholar

2. Dr. Seuss, . The Cat in the Hat. New York: Random House; 1957.Google Scholar

3. Dr. Seuss, . You’re Only Old Once! A Book for Obsolete Children. New York: Random House; 1986.Google Scholar

4. Hawkins, A. Reconstructing Illness: Studies in Pathography. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press; 1993, at 1.Google Scholar

5. U.S. News and World Report. “Somebody’s got to win” in kids’ books: An interview with Dr. Seuss on his books for children, young and old. In: Fensch, T, ed. Of Sneetches and Whos and the Good Dr. Seuss. Jefferson, NC: McFarland; 1997, at 125.Google Scholar

6. Morgan, J, Morgan, N. Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel: A Biography. New York: Da Capo Press; 1995, at 261.Google Scholar

7. See note 4, Hawkins 1993, at xii.

8. Harper H. The private world of Dr. Seuss: A visit to Theodor Geisel’s La Jolla mountaintop. In: Fensch 1997 (see note 5), at 129–34.

9. See Carlin, N. The hospital room as uncanny: Psychoanalytic observations and recommendations for pastors and chaplains. Pastoral Psychology 2009;58:27–42.Google Scholar

10. Hawkins, A. Pathography: Patient narratives of illness. Western Journal of Medicine 1999;171(2):127–9.Google ScholarPubMed

11. Campo, R. “The medical humanities,” for lack of a better term. JAMA 2005;294(9):1009–11.Google Scholar

12. Fox, E, Arnold, R, Brody, B. Medical ethics education: Past, present, and future. Academic Medicine 1995;70(9):761–9.Google Scholar

13. See World Health Organization. Social Determinants of Health; available at http://www.who.int/social_determinants/en/ (last accessed 15 May 2014).

14. Callahan, D. Taming the Beloved Beast: How Medical Technology Costs Are Destroying Our Health Care System. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 2009.Google Scholar

15. See Brody, H. Hooked: Ethics, Medicine, and Pharma; available at http://brodyhooked.blogspot.com/ (last accessed 15 May 2014).Google Scholar

16. On professional identity formation, see Niemi, P. Medical students’ professional identity: Self-reflection during the preclinical years. Medical Education 1997;31(6):408–15.Google Scholar

17. Cott J. The good Dr. Seuss. In: Fensch 1997 (see note 5), at 117.

18. See note 2, Seuss 1957.

19. See Coombs, R. Surviving Medical School. London: Sage; 1998, at 18–22.Google Scholar

20. See note 6, Morgan, Morgan 1995, at 264.