Social Futures: Tackling Poverty in Medicine
Today the nursing staff held a birthday party for a patient. The party was not to celebrate with her, but to cheer on her departure from the service. She had moved into a new age bracket, and as a result, would receive care on the far side of campus. Her details are important insofar as [...]
The Next Decade of Medical Humanism
This post is in response to the following questions: If there is one thing you would like to see change in your faith or ethical tradition over the next ten years, what would it be? What role would you want to play? Medical science is my faith tradition. Of all talk of medicine losing its [...]
Sacred Spaces in Medicine
My favorite place in the hospital is the lobby between the chapel and Dunkin Donuts. Every evening I look forward to passing into the open ceiling veranda, to elevator jazz-music, awaiting my coffee fix for the evening. I wonder if this is the most sacred space in the hospital. Certainly the chapel doesn’t hold a [...]
Can Grit and Curiosity Transform Urban Education?
Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, opened his talk by discussing rats. In an audience of Harvard education students, this set the expectation of a talk about what science can teach about the nebulous concept of character education. While engaging and provocative, his talk only briefly [...]
Islam, Buddhism, and the Origins of the Religious Self
I arrive in Ooty by a nine-hour bus ride, seeking trees and solitude. I’ve heard both of these exist in India – yet I’ve never experienced them in the same place. After downing some Masala Chai, I wander up a craggled street, hoping to catch sight of a mountain peak. A young man approaches, forward [...]
How a Humanist Found Redemption
“You’ll find the next patient interesting Tom, I think he is a lifer.” I grabbed the patient’s chart to assess his clinical history. As I looked up previous lab values and problems, I stumbled across the mental health section – “patient has a steely-eyed gaze,” noted the most recent psychiatric evaluation. I greeted the patient [...]
Educating for Critical Consciousness
There is a crisis of higher education in Dhaka. The crisis is deep-seated, and not based on lack of resources, technology, or facilities. The crisis is a failure of human potential – a failure to capture the imagination of University students. A recent University graduate expressed the same sentiment as the “deprivation of the elation [...]
Creating Religious Dialogue in Bangladesh
“Sir, my parents are very interested in your ideas. They want a picture of you.” With this, my student gave me a pair of sunglasses and asked me to pose. For the last three weeks, I have been teaching a course entitled “Science Studies” at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB). The students range [...]
Book Review: “Broken and Shared,” by Jeff Dietrich
Reading Jeff Dietrich’s new book Broken and Shared is a meditative experience. Dietrich, a Catholic Worker, activist, and advocate for the poor, has devoted his life to the underserved. For the last forty years, he has worked alongside the homeless in a Soup Kitchen in LA’s Skid Row, where he has served hundreds of thousands [...]
The Hidden Values of Medical Training
One of the most cited adages of my medical training has been William Osler’s famous quip: “the secret of caring for the patient is in caring for the patient.” For those not in the medical field, this may seem trivial and quite obvious. I would agree. Perhaps the exalted status of this adage says less [...]
Tom Peteet
Tom Peteet is a 5th year UMASS Medical Student pursuing residency in primary care medicine. His interests include humanism in medicine, yoga, mindfulness, and urban education.
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Contributing Scholars
Guruamrit KhalsaGuruamrit Khalsa is an MA candidate at American University's School of International Service studying U.S. foreign policy and South Asia. She has studied the Arabic and Urdu languages, and was a former intern with the Middle East Institute in Washington.
Marvin Lance WiserOriginally from Tennessee, once a sojourner in Latin America and then California, now a CIRCLE fellow and MDiv student at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, Massachusetts, with concentrations in Hebrew Bible, the Ancient Near East, and Interfaith Studies.
Daniel HallAs a staff member of the Soka Gakkai International-USA Buddhist Association, Daniel directs awareness raising initiatives centered on the U.N. Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace. In May 2012, he completed a Master of Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California and has since conducted research in this area as an independent scholar. His research interests include faith diplomacy, media and religion, and the role of transnational non-state actors in global affairs. In 2013, Palgrave Macmillan will publish his article titled "Pope John Paul II, Radio Free Europe and Faith Diplomacy" as part of a new volume on religion and public diplomacy.