It has long been a goal of DHF to reach Kent and Sussex County medical professionals with Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care. We are pleased to have been able to make this a reality in 2010 by way of our partnership with Bayhealth Medical Center. Earlier this month, DHF kicked off the program in Dover, surrounded by over two dozen doctors, nurses, administrative staff and others with a desire to improve patient-caregiver interaction.
 
The overarching theme of Literature & Medicine is exemplified by this quotation, attributed to Sir William Osler, often referred to as the most influential physician in history: "It is as important to know the person who has the disease as it is to know the disease the person has." Literature allows people to experience worlds outside their own understanding. Patients, like books, require interpretation, and it is the humanities--the traditionally interpretative disciplines--that offer caregivers an effective way of understanding patients and their stories. While DHF can't be in the exam room, it is our hope that this program will open the door to important dialogue.
 
Cultural sensitivity is one goal of this program, and when medical professionals read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman, better understanding of patient traditions is inevitable. My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, by Abraham Verghese, is a memoir that expresses how deeply a doctor can connect with patients, despite extreme differences in cultural background and values. Even the topic of cadavers can facilitate understanding among living humans, which is why Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach, is part of this year's reading list. You don't have to be a medical professional to appreciate the selections chosen for Literature & Medicine 2010. We hope you will visit your local bookstore (Ninth Street Book Shop is a neighbor of DHF) and pick up a copy of any of these books. The full reading list for this year's program will be posted on our website and Facebook soon.

 

As you may know, Delaware was the first of two states to receive a share of President Obama's $4 billion fund for education innovation, eligible for up to $107 million. Some of Delaware's innovative ideas range from bonuses for teachers and principals who voluntarily transfer to struggling schools to "data coaches" placed in schools to help teachers track student performance and adjust lessons to meet academic needs. It would seem that Delaware will continue to look toward the nonprofit sector for teacher development from an academic content standpoint.
 
DHF has always been committed to doing its part to help teachers keep students engaged, and our Visiting Scholars Program has been that instrument. We have offered age-appropriate presentations by various scholars, including scholars of history, literature, language arts, social studies, cartography, art history and other humanities subjects, to Delaware schools (for free!) for over 30 years.
 
In 2010, DHF expands its reach into the education sector. We are implementing teacher institutes, a prototype of which is planned for Cab Calloway in the near future. DHF's program is modeled after those being offered by ten humanities councils across the nation, with a goal of connecting the humanities to work in the classroom.  DHF will help teachers build lesson plans around humanities concepts using biographies, epochs and themes that help students recognize the connection between themselves and other people, cultures and ideas.
 
Stay tuned for more details as this program develops.

 

 

DREAM BOOGIE
by Langston Hughes
 
Good morning, daddy!
Ain't you heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred?

 

Listen closely:
You'll hear their feet
Beating out and Beating out a -

 

You think
It's a happy beat?

Listen to it closely:
Ain't you heard
something underneath
like a -

 

What did I say?

 

Sure,
I'm happy!
Take it away!

 

Hey, pop!
Re-bop!
Mop!

 

Y-e-a-h!

 

Source of poem: cai.ucdavis.edu/uccp/hughesdreamboogie.html

Source of image: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Van Vechten Collection, reproduction number LC-USZ62-92598 DLC (b&w film copy neg).