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This course will explore various forms of literature -- novels, plays, short stories, and poems -- and consider possible answers to the question: What may physicians and lawyers (and, more particularly, students preparing for those professions) learn from these readings? Approximately nine medical students and nine third-year law students will read and discuss these works together.

As much as anything, this course is about professionalism. Students will learn some important things about professionalism and about the profession they are about to enter. More specifically, the goals of this course include: 

• to give future lawyers and doctors some insight into one another's profession, as well as to give them a chance to develop their own ways of talking to one another;
• to give each group a chance to gain insight into their own profession's values by taking a look at another profession;
• to introduce students to the study of literature as a way of gaining exposure to human experience and the ethical dilemmas of daily practice through the writings of master story-tellers;
• to underline the importance of a humane and humanistic professional education and outlook -- to develop students' sensitivity to the human dimension of their professional lives;
• to introduce students to the notion that most of the information they will deal with in their professional lives is organized and transmitted in narrative form -- judicial opinions, client and patient stories (in the form of complaints, histories, etc.), and practical, clinical information (what worked the last time it was tried -- in court or with a type of patient). In that vein, it is useful for students to sharpen their narrative skills by reading and discussing great stories; and
• to introduce students to a form of professional, case-based moral reasoning that resembles casuistry (as distinct from the dominant traditions of reasoning from first principles (deontology), consequentialism, and virtue ethics). We will consider the strengths and weaknesses of this approach through a variety of literary sources.

Readings will include: The Cider House Rules, by John Irving; Trial and Error (edited by Fred R. Shapiro & Jane Garry); On Doctoring (3rd. rev. ed.), edited by Richard Reynolds & John Stone; Whose Life Is It, Anyway?, by Brian Clark; Wit, by Margaret Edson; Measure for Measure by W^m Shakespeare, and additional shorter writings that vary from year to year. Medical journal articles and judicial opinions may be incorporated into the reading list, as well. A complete listing of this year's readings may be seen here.

Students will be required to keep a weekly journal based upon their readings, class discussions, or both. Additionally, pairs of medical and law students will be responsible for leading a portion of the class discussion of various works.  Student will also be required to write 1-2 poems and a brief (5 pp., max.) essay.  Our plan is to collect these writings into a class book that will be distributed at the end of the semester.

We will make at least one field trip to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Children's Medical Center; we may also venture out into the halls of justice for another field trip. There may be an opportunity for law students to "pull call" with medical students at one of Parkland's emergency rooms. Students (preferably working in pairs again) will also be responsible for a joint project at the end of the course. Students are encouraged to apply the same level of imagination and intellectual discipline (if not talent and skill) in creating these projects as do the writers whose works we will read. Research papers will also be permitted.

Most weeks, class preparation will take approximately four hours. Combined with the class itself, this represents about a six-hour commitment for fourteen weeks, not counting time spent on the journal, the poems and essay assignments, and the final project. 

Finally, the class dinner, at which final projects will be presented and discussed, is currently planned for Friday, April 28, at 7:00 p.m., subject to confirmation.  More details to follow.

The instructors for this course are (1) Tom Mayo, Associate Professor of Law (SMU) and Adjunct Associate Professor of Internal Medicine  (UT-Southwestern Medical School); and (2) Patricia Hicks, M.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics (UT-Southwestern Medical School and Children's Medical Center).