November 8-10, 1998
LAURENCE A. SAVETT, M.D., Hamilton '57, clinical professor of medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School, lecturer in biology, Macalester College
Session I
Sunday, November 8, 3-4:30 pm, Assembly Room - Bristol Campus Center
MEDICINE AS A CAREER
What it's like to be a physician: the joys and the highs, the significance of the doctor-patient relationship, becoming a life-long student, the dilemmas in a medical career and the importance of values, how one integrates one's personal and professional life.
Session II
WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE A PATIENT
Monday, November 9, 7:30-9 pm, Assembly Room - Bristol Campus Center
How a student can draw upon his or her own experience to define the concerns and needs of a patient. Using the story of a patient's experience with coronary bypass surgery, we'll evolve a catalogue of issues which pertains to most of medical care and gain insight into what good physicians offer their patients-in both the technical and humanistic dimensions.
Session III
UNCERTAINTY IN MEDICINE
Tuesday, November 10, 7:30-9 pm, Assembly Room - Bristol Campus Center
There are many levels of uncertainty in medical transactions-for thepatient, the patient's family and the physician. Despite the presence ofuncertainty, we are able to make and implement decisions, and physiciansought to be able to share these uncertainties with the patient. Using acase history and drawing upon the students' own experiences, we willexamine ways in which we take action despite uncertainty and explore how weuse the doctor-patient relationship to facilitate these transactions.
LAURENCE A. SAVETT, M.D., Hamilton '57, practiced primary care internalmedicine in Gloucester, Massachusetts and St. Paul, Minnesota for 30 years. He teaches about the psychological and social dimensions of medicine andthe doctor-patient relationship at the University of Minnesota MedicalSchool, where he is Clinical Professor of Medicine, and at MacalesterCollege in St. Paul, where he is Lecturer in Biology and helps to advisepre-med students. His course at Macalester is called, "The Humanism ofMedicine: what it's like to be a patient; what it's like to be aphysician."