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“They Will Put it Together/and Take it Apart”: Fiction and Informed Consent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2021

Lois LaCivita Nixon  and
Delese Wear
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Extract

In his compelling poem, “Talking to the Family,” physician poet John Stone describes the presentation of unbearable news, the death of a mother, to the awaiting family holding the now-motherless infant. First the physician puts on his white coat and reveals the death to the family. Then he takes off the coat, drives home, and replaces a light bulb in the hall. In seven short sentences the reader is drawn into a barren description of tragedy that seems cold and methodical. In line eight, the center of the poem, a single-line stanza thuds heavily, mimicking the message he bears: “I will tell them.”

Type
Article
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 19 , Issue 3-4 , Fall Winter 1991 , pp. 291 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1991

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