A pioneer in defining the role of medical humanist; Ms. Bandman is a writer, co-founder of the Center for Communication in Medicine and co-author of CCM’s signature tool, SpeakSooner®: A Patient’s Guide to Difficult Conversations.
The primary focus of my role as a medical humanist has been to help patients prepare to open conversations with healthcare providers about their health status and planning of care. I can recall instances when I was working at the cancer center in Bennington when...
There is no prescribed timing for when to share difficult medical news. This can be as true for doctors with their patients as it is for patients with loved ones. There can be many reasons for withholding medical information, including doctors avoiding uncomfortable...
Recently, I was thinking about the Rolling Stones lyric “You can’t always get what you want but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need” and found myself checking the dictionary for the definitions of “want” and “need.” I discovered that “want” is a...
Over the years I’ve facilitated Writing is Good Medicine™ programs at the cancer center in Bennington, community workshops and conferences. More recently, due to safety concerns with COVID, online programs have been offered through my blog “A Medical Humanist’s...
In 1999, oncologist Dr. Letha Mills, psychologist Dr. Bernard Bandman, patient Patricia Barr and I, a medical humanist, were invited to present a lecture at Brown Medical School. The topic was “Humanism in Medicine.” Our intent was to identify barriers and solutions...
While digging through files, I stumbled upon comments made by reviewers of “Art Informs Medicine,” an article that I submitted to the Journal of Clinical Oncology in 2010. The reviewers were oncologists. And, it was they who would decide whether my piece would be...
In my July 7 blog Patient Resource Consultant, I shared the circumstances in which I found myself unexpectedly working in cancer care. In essence, Pat Barr, a breast cancer patient and a good friend, convinced the Bennington cancer center’s medical director to hire a...
In digging through files, I discovered a job description of my first position in the world of cancer care. Memories flooded in, including how I initially refused to accept the job. Let me tell you how the door was opened. The year my work began was 1998 and,...
As readers of my blog already know, I am drawn to thinking about the space between uncertainty and hope. At this time of year, I often find myself revisiting “Stanzas Concerning an Ecstasy Experienced in High Contemplation” by St. John of the Cross, which moves me to...
I’ve been finding myself digging around in stacks of archival materials, writings begun but left for another day and, to my surprise, work completed long ago. One of the unfinished pieces was based upon interviews with cancer patients about the role of religion and...
