Wednesday, January 21, 2009

My Life's Running Book List

I love books. They are a refuge to me from the day. Typically, I've read books around our apartment randomly choosing whatever suits my fancy at the moment, but now I've decided to get organized because I want to get to the end of some books. So here's my list that I plan to add to and finish for the next lifetime or so: (Also, if you have a similar list or are inspired to make one please share it!)

Have and want to read
1. Flowers in the Dust Bin (with music) by James Miller
2. House of God by Samuel Shem
3. Oxford American, Nat Geo, and Smithsonian Magazines
4. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Need to Finish List
1. Under the Banner of Heaven by Krakauer
2. Evil and the Justice of God by NT Wright
3. Orthodoxy by Chesterton
4. Catcher in the Rye by Salinger
5. On Doctoring by Reynolds
6. History of Medicine by Porter, Gordon, and Duffin (3 volumes)
7. American Mania by Whybrow
8. On Presbyterianism by Lucas
9. Rediscovering Jesus by Muggeridge
10. Don’t Know Much about the Civil War by Kenneth Davis

Don’t Have but Want to Read List
1. Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America's Quest for Racial Purity by Harry Bruinius
2. The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins
3. In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall
4. Bioethics: An Anthology by Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer
5. The Moral of the Story: An Anthology of Ethics Through Literature by Peter Singer
6. Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine by Roy Porter
7. Salvador Dali by Salvador Dali and Luis Romero
8. Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South by Ralph C. Wood
9. The Feminization of American Culture by Ann Douglas
10. Eiger Dreams by Krakauer
11. Christian Origins and the Question of God 3 Volumes of by NT Wright
12. Fast Food Nation by Linklater
13. Dr. Zhivago by Pasternak
14. The Shack by William Young

Author List
1. Edwin C. Hui
2. Wendell Berry
3. Dorothy Sayers
4. Alvin Plantiga
5. Michael Polyani
6. Kurt Vonnegut
7. Fyodor Dostoeovsky

Friday, January 16, 2009

It all depends...

…on our worldview. A worldview is how we look at the world according the sum of all our experiences. It’s not just our college years or traumatic events that inform our worldviews: our parents, our environment, our friends, our elementary schoolteachers, definitely TV, our happy, bored, and everyday moments, and whatever else we put in our brains affects us. Things that we don’t even remember from childhood have changed the way we look at the world now. It is this observation of the human experience that is the cornerstone of postmodernism. But, postmodernists take the concept and expand it to say that since I have a worldview specific only to me, then I can only have truth that is true to me and my experiences and not anyone else. This, as many have written about extensively, is the worldview that Americans breathe. We love to say, ah, that’s a nice belief FOR YOU. (Did someone mention Oprah?)
So why am I saying this? Because of a conversation I had here in med school with a guy about what doctors should do with their overly educated (and way too expensive) minds. Okay, so here’s the setup. A group of us were talking about this new approach to medicine where rich people pay willing doctors to be on retainer for them. Basically what this means is that a doctor (most likely a primary care doc) has about 80-100 regular patients (most have way more than this) who each pay him a few thousand bucks a year to be their personal doctor. In addition, his patients pay him every time he visits them at their home, work, or whatever is convenient for them. So if you do the math this guy is making really good money and he gets to know his patients really well. That’s sounds perfect, right? Well, yes, except that he/she is not really helping the systemic problem of healthcare delivery because these folks could get good healthcare anytime they want. So I said to the group, “Don’t physicians have a responsibility to other human beings, their profession, and society as a whole to fix some of the inequities in the healthcare system?” (In asking this I understand that people can do with their medical degree whatever they want, but I’m asking what is best.) And the guy responds, “That depends if you consider medicine to be a moral endeavor.” And I said, “Yes, it does depend on that, do you think it is?” And he said, “I’m not saying it is or it isn’t I’m just making the point.” I wonder what he really thinks…. Anyway, it just goes to show that even in medicine, a profession supposedly (or ideally) devoted to service, a worldview can turn those ideals on their head.

My point is that what you think matters to other people. In this guy’s case, for example, whether or not needy people get his much needed attention depends on if he thinks medicine is a moral endeavor. What do we consider moral or amoral? It changes the way we live and the quality of people’s lives around us.

Monday, January 12, 2009

A Cynic makes New Year's Resolutions

(Sunset in Fort Morgan, AL)

I looked up the word cynic in the dictionary. Its most commonly used definition is “a person who has little faith in human sincerity and goodness”. I hate to say it but this describes me all too well. The funny thing is that this is mostly a projection of mine. In psychology authors talk about how it is unhealthy to project or place the faults you see in yourself onto others; and, unfortunately that’s what I do. I doubt my own sincerity and goodness, and therefore, doubt everyone else’s so that I can protect myself from too much self-loathing. (If anyone has ever read Catcher in the Rye, the narrator Holden Caulfield is a perfect, hilarious example of this.) Anyway, this off-putting tendency of mine is one I try to fight, but the roots run deep.

Despite this, every year I make New Year’s resolutions. I love the changing of the year, there always seems to be more contemplation, hope, and fun around this time. We Americans eat black-eyed peas (for me only a face-twitching spoonful soaked in salt), listen to sermons about living with a purpose, watch football with family, and melodramatically talk about how we could never have guessed all the things that happened last year. This is a time where I get to hush that cynic’s voice and dream a little about the future. This is the time of the year when I believe most strongly that change is possible. Unfortunately for Meg, I often wax eloquently (and incessantly) in the car ride home from our holiday vacation. So this year I’ve resolved to read more in the evenings as my form of relaxation, instead of mindlessly watching the TV. Also, I want to start writing letters to loved ones because I think letter writing is a lost art that keeps families and friends close.

Oh yeah, the other definition for a cynic is “one of a school of ancient Greek philosophers founded by Antisthenes, marked by ostentatious contempt for ease and pleasure”. To save the suspense, I don’t plan on developing contempt for pleasure this year, but maybe ease. See, when ease is my primary aim, my pleasure in ease begins to diminish. But, when I get pleasure in things like reading over TV and letter writing over growing distance, I realize that contempt for ease is not so bad after all because it gives pleasure that lasts longer than a half an hour episode. So this year I resolve to be a half-Cynic.