Leslie Jamison, “The Empathy Exams”
- One of Leslie Jamison’s purposes in this piece is to complicate our understanding of empathy, especially in clinical settings. What’s the meaning of the title? What’s the effect of Jamison intertwining her own medical experiences with the simulated case of “Stephanie Phillips”?
- Respond to these quotes from Jamison:
- “Empathy isn’t just listening. It’s asking the questions whose answers need to be listened to. Empathy requires inquiry as much as imagination. Empathy requires knowing you know nothing. Empathy means acknowledging a horizon of context that extends perpetually beyond what you can see.”
- “Empathy comes from the Greek empatheia - em (into) and pathos (feeling) - a penetration, a kind of travel. It suggests you enter another person’s pain as you’d enter another country, through immigration and customs, border crossing by way of query.”
- “No trauma has discrete edges. Trauma bleeds. Out of wounds and across boundaries.”
- For discussion, select another quote from Jamison that was particularly meaningful for you.
Atul Gawande, “The Case of the Red Leg”
- Surgeon Atul Gawande narrates a medical case study that diverges significantly from clinical case studies. What’s the meaning of the title? What do you imagine is the most significant divergence from traditional medical case writing in this piece? What is Gawande advocating in this essay?
- Respond to these words from Gawande:
- “Three decades of neuropsychology research have shown us numerous ways in which human judgment, like memory and hearing, is prone to systematic mistakes. The mind overestimates vivid dangers, falls into ruts, and manages multiple pieces of data poorly. It is swayed unduly by desire and emotion and even the time of day. It is affected by the order in which information is presented and how problems are framed.”
- “Decisions compound themselves, in medicine like in anything else. No sooner have you taken one fork in the road than another and another come upon you.”
Oliver Sacks, “Witty Ticcy Ray”
Neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks also wrote many medical case studies; one patient is “Ray,” a musician with Tourette’s syndrome. How does the title convey the essence of Sacks’s piece? What is Sacks advocating in this essay?
Respond to these quotes from Sacks and “Ray”:
- “In its ‘highest’ forms, Tourette’s syndrome involves every aspect of the affective, the instinctual and the imaginative life; in its ‘lower’ and perhaps commoner forms, there may be little more than abnormal movements and impulsivity…”
- Sacks quoting Ray: “You ‘normals’, who have the right transmitters in the right places at the right times in your brains, have all feelings, all styles, available all the time- gravity, levity, whatever is appropriate. We Touretters don’t: we are forced into levity by our Tourette’s and forced into gravity when we take Haldol. You are free, you have a natural balance; we must make the best of an artificial balance”.
Select another quote from either Gawande or Sacks for discussion.
What did you learn as a writer from these three pieces?
Attribution of Quotes:
Jamison, Leslie. “The Empathy Exams.” In The Empathy Exams: Essays. Graywolf Press, 2014. © Leslie Jamison. All rights reserved. This content is excluded from our Creative Commons license. For more information, see https://ocw.mit.edu/help/faq-fair-use/.
Gawande, Atul. “The Case of the Red Leg.” In Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science. Picador, 2003. © Atul Gawande. All rights reserved. This content is excluded from our Creative Commons license. For more information, see https://ocw.mit.edu/help/faq-fair-use/.
Sacks, Oliver. “Witty Ticcy Ray.” Chapter 10 in The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat and Other Clinical Tales. Vintage Books, 2021. © The Oliver Sacks Foundation. All rights reserved. This content is excluded from our Creative Commons license. For more information, see https://ocw.mit.edu/help/faq-fair-use/.
