IN THIS ISSUE OF JAMA
A PIECE OF MY MIND
The Changing of the Seasons
Terry J. Ratner, RN, MFA
May 5, 2020: JAMA
JAMA. 2020;323(17):1651-1652. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.3760
Forty years ago, in 1980, Jimmy Carter was president. Pac-Man debuted. In medicine, smallpox was declared to be eradicated. Additionally, on May 9, 1980, A Piece of My Mind was inaugurated in JAMA. The first essay, “Tuna on Rye, 1984,” was written by then–senior editor Samuel Vaisrub under the pen name Sam Vee.1 He introduced the column with an editorial entitled “For the Peace of Your Mind.”2
Although much has changed in the world and in medicine since then, A Piece of My Mind has endured and changed very little during the subsequent 4 decades. The essays are longer, for a time they were peer reviewed, and the specific topics and issues have kept pace with medical advances, but the column still serves as a forum for physicians to discuss the human side of medicine. Physicians are trained in science and evidence. Indeed, most articles published in medical journals are research studies full of technical methods and statistics, but devoid of emotion by design. But physicians treat patients, not just their diseases, and confront complicated issues and circumstances daily, with the complexity of medicine only increasing over the past 40 years.
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For the Peace of Your Mind
JAMA. 2020;323(17):1642. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.13422
Originally Published May 9, 1980 | JAMA. 1980;243(18):1845.
We hasten to assure our readers that a piece of my mind...is not intended as a sounding board for peevish gripes, nit-picking beefs, or sundry assortments of righteous indignation, which are usually prefaced by an angry “let me give you a piece of my mind.” Nor is this section of The Journal meant to be a podium for pompous preachments and ex cathedra pronouncements. Nor again is it designed to be a forum for half-baked speculations and warmed-over hypotheses. Least of all is a piece of my mind envisaged as a jamboree of jokes and a shivaree of limericks.
What we have in mind for the newly inaugurated feature is not a formal court of opinion but an informal courtyard of creativity, in which physicians display vignettes of their nonscientific and not strictly clinical observations, experiences, reflections, and fantasies tinged with philosophy or humor.
The appearance of a piece of my mind will, of necessity, be determined by available contributions. These will not be assessed by peer review. They will be accepted or rejected without explanation. Based on the principle of “De gustibus non est disputandum,” this arbitrariness needs no apology. Do take a chance and mail us your masterpieces.
Samuel Vaisrub, MD
Section Editor: Jennifer Reiling, Assistant Editor.
Editor’s Note: JAMA Revisited is transcribed verbatim from articles published previously, unless otherwise noted.
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Editorial
May 5, 2020
JAMA. 2020;323(17):1651-1652. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.3760
Forty years ago, in 1980, Jimmy Carter was president. Pac-Man debuted. In medicine, smallpox was declared to be eradicated. Additionally, on May 9, 1980, A Piece of My Mind was inaugurated in JAMA. The first essay, “Tuna on Rye, 1984,” was written by then–senior editor Samuel Vaisrub under the pen name Sam Vee.1 He introduced the column with an editorial entitled “For the Peace of Your Mind.”2
Although much has changed in the world and in medicine since then, A Piece of My Mind has endured and changed very little during the subsequent 4 decades. The essays are longer, for a time they were peer reviewed, and the specific topics and issues have kept pace with medical advances, but the column still serves as a forum for physicians to discuss the human side of medicine. Physicians are trained in science and evidence. Indeed, most articles published in medical journals are research studies full of technical methods and statistics, but devoid of emotion by design. But physicians treat patients, not just their diseases, and confront complicated issues and circumstances daily, with the complexity of medicine only increasing over the past 40 years.
A journal limited to research would fail to convey the entire experience of a physician or meet all the needs of readers. In one essay, “Story as Evidence, Evidence as Story,” Dr Aronson writes “a single, well-told story of human suffering trumps the most eloquent explanation of a large-scale trial.”3 In JAMA, A Piece of My Mind allows authors to share their perspectives and recount the patients who have touched them or redefined their careers; their experiences trying to balance medicine and all the other parts of their lives; their struggles learning to be physicians, whether in medical school or adjusting to changes in practice; their own medical and emotional challenges or those of family members; and the aspects of medicine that confound or delight them./.../
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Editorial
May 5, 2020
JAMA. 2020;323(17):1649-1650. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.1488
My first glimpse into the craft of physician-writers did not come through Anton Chekhov, Walker Percy, or William Carlos Williams, whose works I only came to after medical school. As a schoolboy, I loved W. Somerset Maugham, although he never practiced medicine, and his craft had little to do with his medical degree. My introduction to physicians as writers came through my textbooks. Boyd’s Pathology made me aware of literary voice, the ability of authors to place themselves in the text, let their personality come through, and subtly become a character in the reading experience.1 On the topic of defining the moment of death, Boyd in his single-author text wrote, “It was the author of the book of Ecclesiastes who said, ‘There is a time to be born, and a time to die.’ Fortunately it is the clinician, not the pathologist, who has to make this difficult decision. Sometimes, however, the kindly doctor may find himself murmuring those moving lines from the last act of King Lear: O let him pass! He hates him/That would upon the rack of this tough world/Stretch him out longer.”
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