{"id":3835,"date":"2024-03-27T10:00:06","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T09:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=3835"},"modified":"2024-03-22T10:51:24","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T09:51:24","slug":"illustrating-end-of-life-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2024\/03\/27\/illustrating-end-of-life-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Illustrating End of Life Care"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Wendy MacNaughton, <em>How to Say Goodbye <\/em>(Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023. ISBN-13: 978-1639730858).<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Book Review by Jess Libow<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In her 2023 guide to caring for the dying, <em>How to Say Goodbye, <\/em>illustrator Wendy MacNaughton implores her readers to look closely. As she explains in the introduction, drawing is one way of doing just that. The same might be said of taking in the richly conceived sketches that fill her brief but poignant book. An account of the lessons that MacNaughton learned during a year-long artist\u2019s residency at San Francisco\u2019s Zen Hospice Project\u2019s Guest House (now the Zen Caregiving Project), <em>How to Say Goodbye<\/em> depicts dying patients surrounded by loved ones, hospice professionals, and cherished animals and objects. MacNaughton\u2019s illustrations model an ethic of attentiveness that loved ones and healthcare providers alike can draw on when treatment is no longer an option. \u201cAll anyone wants,\u201d she insists, \u201cis your presence and to feel you\u2019re paying attention.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Observation is a crucial skill for both humanistic inquiry and medical practice, and medical humanities scholars believe studying visual art can teach healthcare providers to approach observation as a process of both \u201cdiscovery\u201d and \u201ccare.\u201d<a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\"><sup>1<\/sup><\/a> MacNaughton\u2019s portraits demonstrate that tending to the dying is not simply a matter of providing them with a standardized care protocol, but also about approaching them with curiosity. Desiring to learn from and about hospice patients, she suggests, leads to a higher quality of end-of-life care. \u201cFollow their lead,\u201d she advises. We would do well to follow MacNaughton\u2019s lead. Interspersed amidst the dynamic hospice scenes depicted in the book, her portraits of individual patients represent them with both dignity and vulnerability, vividly conveying their individual identities.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the portraits highlight her subjects\u2019 creativity. An older woman wearing a fluffy pink robe hangs her head with her eyes closed. Knitting needles and yarn lay across her lap. She is, we learn, often \u201cknitting, sleeping, [and] requesting borscht for dinner.\u201d Another older woman sits in a wheelchair with two framed paintings hanging behind her. The accompanying text clarifies that these are her own creations: \u201cSitting close to her artwork, paintings made from thousands and thousands of tiny beads.\u201d MacNaughton\u2019s illustrations of these pursuits allows us to see her subjects not only as individuals, but as fellow creatives.<\/p>\n<p>Many of her subjects appear to thrive on interpersonal connection. A young woman in a wheelchair, her face hidden by the long blond bang falling from her otherwise short hair, glances down at her phone. Her focus on the phone makes her appear disengaged, but the accompanying text reads, \u201cwaiting for her dad to arrive.\u201d The device is merely a stopgap until her father is able to be with her. A middle-aged woman with bright red hair that matches both her blouse and the soda can on her desk is posed at the computer, her gaze on the screen. We learn that she is \u201cwriting emails to far away friends\u201d and also that she has been teaching MacNaughton how to swear in French. For her, too, technology bridges the distance. MacNaughton\u2019s additional note about their language lessons indicates the necessity of complementing such remote correspondence with physical presence.<\/p>\n<p><em>How to Say Goodbye\u2019s <\/em>spare prose and tenderly crafted illustrations are not only a guide to caring for the dying; they are also a testament to the role that the arts can play when healing is no longer medicine\u2019s goal. The act of illustrating models the deliberate attention that all those who care for the dying can bring to the bedside. MacNaughton teaches readers not only to look death directly in the face but also to endeavor to see the individuality of those who have reached the end of life.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>References<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref1\" name=\"_edn1\">[1]<\/a> Alexa R. Miller, \u201cObservation,\u201d in<em> Keywords for Health Humanities<\/em>, eds. Sari Altschuler, Jonathan M. Metzl, and Priscilla Wald (New York: NYU Press, 2023), 151.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jlibow.com\/\"><em>Jess Libow<\/em><\/a><em> is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Writing Program at Haverford College, where she teaches courses on health, gender, and activism in U.S. She is currently working on a book on visualizations of health in American culture.<\/em><!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wendy MacNaughton, How to Say Goodbye (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023. ISBN-13: 978-1639730858). Book Review by Jess Libow In her 2023 guide to caring for the dying, How to Say Goodbye, illustrator Wendy MacNaughton implores her readers to look closely. As she explains in the introduction, drawing is one way of doing just that. The same might [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2024\/03\/27\/illustrating-end-of-life-care\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2965],"tags":[15166],"class_list":["post-3835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-book-review"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Illustrating End of Life Care - Medical Humanities<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jess Libow reviews Wendy MacNaughton&#039;s How to Say Goodbye in today&#039;s book review.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=3835\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Illustrating End of Life Care - 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