By Sharnita Midgett
A group of young scientists in Minnesota recently welcomed Penn Memory Center Co-Director Jason Karlawish, MD, into their classroom.
High school students in the Shattuck-St. Mary’s School bioscience enrichment program have been reading Karlawish’s 2011 historical novel Open Wound to enrich their study of the digestive system. Program Director Maren LaLiberty, MD, invited Karlawish to Skype in with the classroom before the students finished the book.
“There are certain aspects of anatomy and physiology that can really only be illuminated by stories,” LaLiberty said.
Open Wound chronicles the years of U.S. Army Assistant Surgeon William Beaumont, who in 1822 saves the life of a French Canadian fur trapper against his superior’s wishes. Alexis St. Martin, the trapper, suffers an accidental gunshot wound to the stomach that never fully closes. This leads to Beaumont learning a great deal about the process of digestion, and his good deed turns into an obsession for fame, wealth, and prestige.
LaLiberty’s students were studying the digestive system last term, and Open Wound was a natural fit into the curriculum, LaLiberty said.
“Once we really got into it, I realized that it was really important for the students who were interested in medicine,” she said, “because it helped to demonstrate how doctors are human, and they all carry baggage from their life like Dr. Beaumont did.”
In their discussion, Karlawish described Beaumont as a character who he originally thought was “a good guy gone bad” but in reality was more of “a good and bad guy being good and bad.”
LaLiberty believed that it was important for her students who want to work in medicine to understand what is motivating them to make certain decisions — either for themselves, their career, or their patient.
“[Beaumont] came from poor circumstances, and that really drove a lot of his decisions. It’s important to talk to the students about the fact that Dr. Beaumont wasn’t particularly introspective,” said LaLiberty.
LaLiberty said though the class is now learning about the kidney, they will continue reading Open Wound.
“We’re going to read it the rest of the term because it just illustrates so wonderfully many aspects of what it’s like to be a physician,” she said.