Distinguished researcher, educator to lecture on the doctor-patient relationship as described in the writings of Beauvoir, Tolstoy and Kafka

By Joe Kuttenkuler

WHAT:      Dr. Michele Respaut, a researcher, educator and interdisciplinary scholar, known best for her study of literature and medicine will be the guest speaker during a medical grand rounds session. The lecture is sponsored by the Department of Internal Medicine in Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Medicine as part of its annual Humanities Lecture series.    

Respaut will present "Patients and Doctors: Writing Illness in Beauvoir, Tolstoy and Kafka" which examines the relationships between physicians and patients in selected writings by the three novelist-philosophers. Her lecture will include discussions of Simone de Beauvoir's "A Very Easy Death," Leo Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," and Franz Kafka's "A Country Doctor."

A graduate of Universit� de Montpellier, France and Assumption College, Respaut received her doctorate from Brown University and is currently the chair of the Department of French at Wellesley College.

The lecture series was created to enlighten medical professionals by focusing on non medical, yet important aspects of care such as how physicians can improve relationships with their patients, the historical legacy of ideas in medicine, how patients perceive physicians, and how authors, artists and play writes depict physicians' skills and what physicians can learn from their works.

WHERE:      Medical Sciences Building, Hermes Kontos Auditorium,
                     1217 E. Marshall St.

WHEN:      Thursday, April 8, noon - 1 p.m.