Illness affects us all; we are called on to support and care for loved ones who face health challenges and in turn, we encounter our own physical and emotional frailties when our health declines. Body & Soul features inspiring and award-winning fiction, essays, memoirs, poetry, photography, and visual art on the universal themes of wellness, treatment, and healing. Told from the points of view of patients, practitioners, caregivers, families, and friends, Body & Soul provides a powerful literary perspective on how we are challenged, bewildered, changed, and uplifted by our encounters with change, illness and disease. Readers will appreciate the richness, depth, and diversity of these healing stories and will become motivated to generate and share their own transformative narratives.
Together with the online discussion guide (providing questions relating to selected pieces in the anthology), Body & Soul is an ideal text for courses and support groups as well as individual reflection. Students and practitioners from all clinical disciplines and scholars in the humanities and social sciences will find this text invaluable. Allison Crawford, MD, Rex Kay, MD, Allan Peterkin, MD, Robin Roger, MA, and Ronald Ruskin, MD, founded Ars Medica: A Journal of Medicine, the Arts, and Humanities in 2006. Aaron Orkin, MD, joined the editorial team for this book in 2010. ‘This is a wonderful anthology of brave voices. They speak clearly with both the vulnerability, and courage that arises from illness and healing. It is not only an insider’s view of the world of health care providers and patients. It is a meditation upon all of our inner hearts.’ -- Vincent Lam, author of Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures ‘In Body & Soul, the editors have assembled an astonishing collection of gritty, yet stylish stories of physicians, patients, as well as family and friends … These contributions bridge the divide between physician and patient through the common medium of story. This book is a comfort to patients in distress; it should be required reading for anyone who aims to be called a physician.’ -- Brian Goldman, host of CBC Radio’s White Coat, Black Artand author of The Night Shift: Real Life in the Heart of the ER |
