The Clinic & The Person
The Clinic & The Person is a podcast bringing knowledge and perspectives from the humanities to certain aspects of biomedicine. “The Clinic” represents all that biomedicine brings to bear on diseases and treatments, and “The Person” represents all that people go through with health problems. Our episodes draw from works in the humanities—any genre—directly related to how people are affected by specific clinical events such as migraine headaches, epileptic seizures, and dementia, and by specific health care situations such as restricted access to care and gut-wrenching, life and death choices. We analyze and interpret featured works and provide thoughts on their applications in patient care; health professions education; clinical and population research; health care policy; and social and cultural trends and preoccupations. Often joining us are the creators of works we feature or experts on the topics we select.
The Clinic & The Person
Getting Dopesick: Four Angles on the Opioid Crisis
We feature four different angles addressing the opioid crisis, mostly as the opioid product OxyContin is involved and as the Appalachian region is affected. Our objective is to show how realms outside Biomedicine—the Humanities, in this case—can provide a range of perspectives suited to preferences, interests, and needs for understanding a particular issue. The four angles we feature are: nonfiction investigative journalism; nonfiction dramatization; narrative nonfiction; and literary fiction. We consider different approaches to selecting the best choice or the best order among available options.
Source Citations:
Macy B. Dopesick. New York; Little, Brown, and Company, 2018
Strong D. Dopesick. John Goldwyn Productions, 2021 (streamed on Hulu)
Keefe PR. Empire of Pain. New York; Doubleday, 2021.
Kingsolver B. Demon Copperhead; Harper, 2022. (Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
Links:
Russell Teagardens According to the Arts blog pieces mentioned in the podcast:
- Dopesick (nonfiction book – investigative)
- Dopesick (TV miniseries)
- Empire of Pain (narrative nonfiction)
- Demon Copperhead (novel)
Russell Teagarden’s article in The Pharos comparing Dopesick (the book and the TV miniseries) with Demon Copperhead
Recommendations:
Barbara Kingsolver in conversation with Beth Macy (Nov 2, 2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSglbhS1-WU&t=15s
De Quincey T. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. New York; Penguin Classics, 2003. (See Russell Teagarden’s blog piece on this book here.)
Daudet A. In the Land of Pain. (Translator Julian Barnes) New York; Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. (See Russell Teagarden’s blog piece on this book here.)
Please send us comments, recommendations, and questions to: russell.teagarden@theclinicandtheperson.com.
Thanks for listening, and please subscribe to The Clinic & The Person wherever you get your podcasts, or visit our website.
Executive producer: Anne Bentley
