Last week our nursing students started what is lovingly known as "Boot Camp." Boot Camp is the concentrated time we spend in the skills lab learning basic patient assessment and other fundamental skills such as bed baths, bed making, hygiene cares,etc... Some of these skills are practiced on one another while others are practiced on mannequins. Last Friday I was helping the students practice bed baths when one of them said, "I feel like I'm a little girl playing dolls." Essentially that's exactly what we were doing. Little girls (and sometimes even boys) have been learning the art of how to physically care for others by "playing dolls" for centuries.
One group of students was practicing basic care on the pediatric mannequin when the they noticed that the arm was not securely attached. Needless to say we ended up with a traumatic amputation. I took little Jill (the name they chose for their "patient") into my office for some orthopaedic surgery. I was able to reattach the arm but unfortunately due to some missing parts Jill will have a slightly more limited range of motion in her right shoulder.
In my attempts to find some material for some upcoming class discussions I have been reading a wonderful book titled Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. It's by Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey. Dr. Brand was a missionary doctor at a leprosy hospital in India. The book is written from his perspective and discusses the ingenious design of the human body and it's implications to what that means in the concept of community.
In one chapter Dr. Brand describes how he was able to learn more about the disease process of leprosy by studying the bones found in a 500 year old leper colony. He recalls a lecture he once attended by a famous anthropologist. In her lecture Dr. Mead claimed that the earliest sign of civilization is not a clay pot or tools. She claims that the earliest signs of civilization are healed bones! Such artifacts, she said, are never found in the remains of savage societies. The artifacts left behind by them are always evident of violence and destruction. A healed femur (such as the example she had when giving this lecture) showed that someone must have cared for the victim and provided for him (at personal sacrifice) during his time of recovery.
How fascinating, the concepts of caring and community truly are what make us "civilized."
On Monday when I came back into my office after making some copies I found Jill sitting at my desk!
2 comments:
That's true - (and totally cool) about the ancient bones! In Egypt near the pyramids they found the same thing, and discovered that many of the pyramids were not made by Isrealite slaves, but Egyptian craftsmen who were well taken care of by doctors who set broken bones and even performed surgeries (they found ancient surgical tools).
You mentioned the book "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made" by Dr. Brand. I love that book also! I am in the process of reading one about his wife (also Dr. Brand) titled, Vision for the Lord. She specialized in eye health overseas. Oh what a woman and what adventures she and her family had. I believe she is still living in Seattle!
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