Beauty and the Re-Enchantment of Medicine
John Eberly, MACS, M.D. Student, Duke Divinity School, University of South Carolina School of Medicine
Beauty, as a sense of wholeness which moves toward the way things should be, reawakens us to wonder and pay attention. In this paper, I first introduce my personal disenchantment as a medical student in a brief anecdote. I then explore the disenchantment of the world with particular attention to the current and troubling trends of burnout, suicide, and depression within the medical community. After exploring the ways in which the world finds itself disenchanted in medicine, science, culture, and religion, I analyze the patterns of enchantment as C. S. Lewis imagines them in his essay “Talking About Bicycles”: un-enchantment, enchantment, disenchantment, and re-enchantment. Once disenchantment and this suggested pattern of re- enchantment are established, I conclude with an introductory exploration of beauty – what it is, how it re-enchants, and why it matters for medicine. In the end, I suggest that beauty re-enchants medicine by cultivating wonder, awe, a descent into ugliness, and a longing for the way things should be.
Beauty, as a sense of wholeness which moves toward the way things should be, reawakens us to wonder and pay attention. In this paper, I first introduce my personal disenchantment as a medical student in a brief anecdote. I then explore the disenchantment of the world with particular attention to the current and troubling trends of burnout, suicide, and depression within the medical community. After exploring the ways in which the world finds itself disenchanted in medicine, science, culture, and religion, I analyze the patterns of enchantment as C. S. Lewis imagines them in his essay “Talking About Bicycles”: un-enchantment, enchantment, disenchantment, and re-enchantment. Once disenchantment and this suggested pattern of re- enchantment are established, I conclude with an introductory exploration of beauty – what it is, how it re-enchants, and why it matters for medicine. In the end, I suggest that beauty re-enchants medicine by cultivating wonder, awe, a descent into ugliness, and a longing for the way things should be.
