Teaches medical students literature: Guðrún Steinþórsdóttir discusses the connection of literature and medical science
Photo: Guðrún Steinþórsdóttir
Translation: Victoria Bakshina
Can doctors apply literary studies in their work? Guðrún Steinþórsdóttir, a new PhD in literature, has over the past few semesters taught medical students to use literature in their interactions with patients. Her doctoral thesis, The reality of the mind is a fairytale: the selected stories by Vigdís Grímsdóttur, their characteristics and reception came out in book form published by Hið íslenska bókmenntafélagið before Christmas, and there Guðrún examines characters’ imagination, personal worlds, imaginary friends, empathy and power struggles, as well as the studies of emotional responses of readers. The Student Paper sat down with Guðrún to discuss the dissertation, teaching at the Faculty of Medicine and the relationship of these two disciplines - literature and medicine, which at first sight, perhaps, seems unlikely.
Why did you choose this approach to the works of Vigdís Grímsdóttir?
In her works Vigdís has strived to investigate the internal functioning of her characters, or how to be a human, by examining, for example, how people use their imagination and creative abilities to deal with the reality they live in, how they behave in social interactions, and whether they feel empathy towards each other. Then, she has also written a lot about power and powerlessness, thus investigating all kinds of intriguing psychological material. Because of the material treated in the books by Vigdís, it was suitable to take advantage of cognitive theory in analyzing them. Cognitive theory is a hypernym for different disciplines such as psychology, literature and neurology, which have one thing in common: they are used to understand the person and the way they function a little bit better. It worked very well for me to take advantage of psychological theories in order to investigate characters by Vigdís and better understand their thoughts, imagination, action and state. However, I was not only interested in observing the feelings of the characters, but also of the readers, what happens when we read fiction, what emotions does it evoke and why; do we sympathize with the characters or not.
By reading we sometimes forget the place and moment, fall into the story’s world and even identify with characters, so that all of a sudden we feel what they feel; feel empathy towards them. We may be crying over the fate of a character or rejoicing when things are going well. I believe that a large part of the pleasure of reading is precisely this ability to dive into various fictional worlds and feel empathy towards characters because when it happens we are really enjoying reading.
You have been teaching for some time at the Faculty of Medicine, it is perhaps not the first thing that comes to people’s minds when they think about the medical school, a literary scholar teaches courses?
No, it’s just maybe a little bit unexpected. But when one looks closer, literary scholars and doctors have a variety of things in common. In both cases, literary scholars and doctors work to analyze the narratives or interpret the words of others. Sometimes not everything is said straight away and then one must read between the lines to gain a better understanding of the narrative. Just like literary scholars, doctors need to be alert to how individuals express themselves, for example, how they describe pain, which similes they use and what they signify, and as to whether they use a particular emotional word, that is worth stopping and discussing in detail. Doctors need, so to say, to be proficient in analyzing the subtext of their patients’ narratives, that they can learn, for example, by training themselves in narratology.
Reading literature can also be useful for medical students because through reading fiction you can learn a lot of things. There we can read about the emotional life of the character and their experience of reality. Through reading we get to know the characters faster than people in real life, often we get access to their thoughts and get to know how they feel, what they think and how they act in certain situations. We can also say that by the power of empathy and co-identification with characters, readers are given the opportunity to encounter all kinds of situations and deal with various problems, so in this way they can gain a certain experience without even experiencing it literally themselves. Doctors and medical students can, for example, read fiction about how patients may respond to certain diseases or how they describe their pain, that’s exactly the kind of texts I use when I teach medical students.
In my teaching, I have also discussed empathy, what it consists of and how to show it so that doctors’ patients feel it. The fact is, namely, that a doctor may well experience empathy towards a patient without showing it. For the patient to feel empathy, the doctor may do a lot of things, for example, applying active listening and allowing the patient to talk without interrupting them, keeping eye contact, asking questions evenly about the illness and the person’s life, showing care and using detailed explanations in plain language instead of throwing around scientific terms in Latin. Then it is also good not to hide behind the computer and write down the patient’s words while they are talking or go away mid-conversation and leave the patient behind. These things are probably obvious but can be forgotten in daily rounds, therefore it is good to remind the medical students to have them in mind because those are all elements that are easy to acquire.
How do students take it when they are told: "Here is a literary scholar who is going to teach you to understand your patients better.”?
Just incredibly well. They have always been positive. These are very nice students who are always ready for discussions about the literary text and film fragments I have used in teaching. I think they find the material somewhat useful. The last few years I’ve taught with Kristín Sigurðardóttir, trauma and emergency physician, it has also been very nice to have her point of view, that of a doctor’s, in teaching literature. Otherwise, the doctors who teach communication theory classes have been very positive and satisfied with this cooperation. Now it’s been ten years since literary scholars have been teaching at the Faculty of Medicine. These were the pioneers and literature professors Ásdís Egilsdóttir and Dagný Kristjánsdóttir, who started teaching there, it really happened by accident. Bryndís Benediktsdóttir, a family physician, professor emeritus, and a teacher of communication theory, heard an interview with Ásdís on the radio, where she was talking about the relationship of literature and medicine. Bryndís had been using literature in her teaching, but she liked what Ásdís presented so much that she called her and got her to come and teach; Ásdís did so and took Dagný with her. So began this good and creative cooperation.
And this has now been going on for a decade?
Yes, indeed, Ásdís and Dagný have since retired, so I am the only literary scholar who is coming to communication theory classes now. But we have not just taught at the Faculty of Medicine, we have also twice taught courses about medical humanities at the Faculty of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies with Bergljót Soffía Kristjánsdóttir, professor emeritus. Bergljót is a pioneer in the cognitive sciences, which are, of course, strongly connected to medical humanities. In these courses we have received visits from doctors, so the doctors have also taught at the Faculty of Icelandic. We have also held seminars together with doctors, both at the conference Hugvísindaþing and Medicine Days, besides, the literary scholars have been invited to speak at the events by Association of enthusiasts of the history of medicine, so the cooperation between these disciplines has been very good and prosperous.