Literature & Medicine: From the Hospital
Interview with Sister Jeremy Daigler ::: bio
and Dr. Karen Arnold ::: bio by Jean Wortman ::: bio

Jean Wortman

The following is an interview that Jean Wortman of the Maryland Humanities Council conducted with the liaison and facilitator for the Literature & Medicine program at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore. Liaison Sister Jeremy Daigler, Special Assistant for Donor Relations and former Emergency Room Chaplain, and facilitator Dr. Karen Arnold, a poet and humanities scholar, have worked together in this successful program for two years.

An Inside Look at Literature & Medicine

Jeremy, you were one of the people responsible for instituting Lit & Med at Mercy Medical Center. What attracted you to this particular program?

JD: Our Vice-President, Amy Freeman, requested that I co-chair the program with our medical librarian. It appealed to me personally because of my life-long passion for reading, and because I was eager to consider my day-to-day work in health care from a much broader human perspective.

Karen, can you give some examples of the literature that the group at Mercy read? Why did you choose these particular pieces?

KA: We read a short story by Andrea Barrett, Ship Fever, a tale about nineteenth-century Irish fever ships landing in Canada and a doctor caught up in the passengers’ fates and his own uncertainties as a healer and a man. We also read selections from Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, stories about soldiers in Viet Nam and after their return. These texts were highly recommended and fit our interest in the healing process.

Did you have a favorite reading?

JD: Certain readings leap to mind. “People Like That Are the Only People Here” by Lorrie Moore is a powerful short story told from the point of view of the mother of a pediatric oncology patient. The topic alone is unforgettable, and the insight into parents of seriously ill children was helpful to me in my work as a Chaplain in the Emergency Department. Henri Barbusse’s allegorical short story, “The Eleventh” was especially appropriate for today, focusing on the issue of access to care for desperately poor patients.

KA: I was pleased and surprised by the response to Tim O’Brien’s work. His stories detail tough, action-filled war sequences and sad, thought provoking views of veterans’ lives. I had wondered how the stories would strike members of our group—whether they would relate. The intensity of the characters’ experiences drew them in, and they avidly discussed the pain involved and ways to heal. Their empathy made the stories more powerful for me too.

Karen, how is Literature & Medicine different from other reading and discussion programs you have led?

KA: Lit & Med participants share a common workplace so their interests and concerns overlap more than those of audiences with more varied backgrounds. I think these circumstances made discussions easier. They came fully prepared with thoughtful comments and questions every week, and their enthusiasm always offered me new ways to appreciate familiar texts. Their probing deepened my sense of literature’s relevance to the healing profession.

Jeremy, you have been a participant in the program for two years. How has this program impacted your everyday work at Mercy?

JD: As a relative newcomer to health care work, I learned a great deal about the field of medicine through the program - and it fascinates me. In addition, in the stratified community of a health care institution, I am very grateful for the “equalizing” effect of all the participants in the program feeling themselves to be peers in a common endeavor.

From your perspectives, how do you think Mercy staff benefited from the program?

JD: From what I’ve heard and read in program evaluations, when the participants leave the room and return to their work, they are aware of new and improved relationships with their co-workers, including physicians. They are proud of Mercy’s participation in this innovative program, and they enjoy stretching their minds through the readings.

KA: Participants shared information from their particular professional experiences—doctors, nurses, administrators, counselors, and information technologists got to express their concerns and challenges and to hear those faced by others at the hospital. Several said that specific readings and the open approach to literature was personally rewarding in unexpected ways.

From the Hospital is a column for program liaisons. Submissions may report success stories, describe challenges, offer advice or pose questions relating to organizing and/or participating in Literature & Medicine seminars. Additionally, the editor welcomes any responses or reactions to pieces published in this column.

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