Medical College of Wisconsin Humanities

So today I received the finished works of the students in the Medical Humanities class that I had the joy of teaching one seminar in...what great writing.  I am confident in the future of medicine.  In these collections of essays and poems is more heart and soul than I have read in a while.  The ability to reflect on oneself, one's limitations, one's dreams, and the humanity in all of us...it is powerful.  And then, in the midst of the manic pace of the ER, or the OR, or the ICU... the student can laugh at themselves.  At their fear of the  looming laundry basket, at their love of summer of Wisconsin, at their wish for sleep, at their wish to do better, at getting caught sneaking a snack in the OR.  Medicine is a beautiful, terrible, saddening, maddening, joyful thing.   I am