Tag Archives: pain

Singer, Songwriter, Scientist: Rosanne Cash

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What does Rosanne Cash have to do with science or medicine?

Sure, the American pop, folk, country, and roots rock legend isn’t technically a scientist.  But it was surprising for us to learn that Rosanne Cash has the soul of one within her, with its arms spread comfortably around her musician and poet souls.  When the University of Iowa’s Hancher Auditorium reached out to the College of Medicine to let us know she’d be putting on a concert and might be interested in coming to speak on a panel, we had to dig a little deeper to find out about the connection.

Rosanne was diagnosed in 2007 with Chiari malformation with syringomyelia, a disorder of the skull which puts pressure on the brain and causes the cerebellum to protrude into the spinal canal.  It’s an incredibly painful, debilitating problem that is usually diagnosed in children, not in a woman in her 50s.  Her doctors gave her all sorts of diagnoses (some with a dose of condescension), until she diagnosed herself.  Even then, it took finding the right doctor to believe her to get her on the long journey to recovery.  The lessons of her identity and career-threatening condition are profound.

Then, too, there is Rosanne’s curiosity about music and the brain.  With MD/PhD student Miranda Schene, M1 Alexa Schmitz and neuroscientist Justin Sipla, PhD she was fully on board for an often trippy exploration of how and why we are creatures of rhythm, the “sorcery” our brains use to fabricate meaning from vibrations in the world around us, and what an openness to shared experiences can do for medical students and doctors and their patients.

There are other connections to medicine.  The link between a performer being on stage for an audience and physicians performing a role for their patients are considerable, and the lessons Rosanne has learned about creating a shared experience between performer and audience are applicable to the relationship between doctors and their patients.  But there is also her desire to “keep a beginner’s mind” that every doctor should appreciate–cultivating one’s curiosity and understanding that “insecurity is part of the game” are essential lessons that could keep you from missing something important in patient care.


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Bonus Episode! Palliative Care: A Perspective from A Land Where It Barely Exists, ft. Dr. MR Rajagopal

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Palliative care is not a thing in India, mostly.

In most of India, palliative care–a medical specialty focused on improving the quality of life of people with life-limiting or disabling diseases–is available to only 1% of people who need it.  But in Kerala, one organization is making lots of headway in promoting this vital specialty.  In this episode, Pallium India’s founder, chairman, and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr. MR Rajagopal visited the University of Iowa College of Medicine to talk about their efforts to introduce to Indian providers a new way of thinking about pain and other symptoms by providing emotional, social and spiritual support.

As you might expect from such a practitioner, Dr. Rajagopal is an extraordinarily thoughtful man with a kind, quiet voice that belies what must be an extraordinary force of will needed to accomplish his goals.  Tony Rosenberg, Ellie Ginn, Rachel Schenkel, and Jayden Bowen discussed how he began his journey, what his fellow Indian providers made of these ideas, and what his hopes are for the future of palliative medicine around the world.

We Want to Hear From You

Do you or anyone in your family have experience with palliative care? Tell us about it at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  We’d love to hear from you!

Continue reading Bonus Episode! Palliative Care: A Perspective from A Land Where It Barely Exists, ft. Dr. MR Rajagopal

Sudden Empathy, Too Much Empathy, and A Lack of Empathy

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empathy photo
Photo by Sean MacEntee

Poor lister Erin. She writes to let us know she can’t find the first 44 episodes of the show, now that she’s listened to all eighty(!) of those available on iTunes. We explain how she can fill the sad hole in her life this tragedy has left. Dave’s shower thoughts lead Aline Sandouk, Amy Young, Marc Toral and Kaci McCleary to discuss the utility of giving not a single feldercarb what people think of you. On the flip side, an article in the New York Times offers a peek at what can happen if you go from not caring (or even knowing) what people think to caring all too much, when transcranial magnetic stimulation suddenly enables an autistic man to understand what others are thinking of him.
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