[Sent – 25 November 2018 to the 170+ surgeons et al of our Surgical Ethics (Education) Consortium]
Greetings. I trust your Thanksgiving pause has been refreshing. For my ‘Surgical Ethics Education Resources’ #9 communication, I have inserted below a poem I wrote seventeen years ago for our youngest daughter. The location – The James Joyce Irish Pub on State Street in Santa Barbara. The occasion – her thirteenth birthday which in November 2001 was just a few weeks ahead. The day before, I had delivered a Grand Rounds presentation entitled ‘I and Thou’: An Endangered Idea(l) in the Practice of Medicine for the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Two months before, the life realities into which my daughter was growing/maturing had pivoted abruptly and harshly with the ‘9 11’ tragedies. My wife and I returned to Santa Barbara this Thanksgiving break with our daughter (now thirty and soon to be married). Yesterday afternoon when we looked into The James Joyce, I could see myself sitting at one of the tables across from the bar drafting and redrafting on a couple of 4x6 cards what I wanted to say to my soon-to-be teenage daughter about how ‘to live life well’, realizing she would be increasingly on her own – beyond my sight/reach – face to face with life’s certainties and uncertainties. Ethics has to do with what we prioritize, with what we assign unparalleled value. Doug
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To live life well –_______________________
Your cup, drink completely
Your values, test existentially
Your love, release freely
Your joy, reveal tastefully
Your vision, pursue boldly
Your lifestyle, simplify radically
Your family, shelter vigilantly
Your friend, stand with unconditionally
Your neighbor, meet respectfully
Your vocation, embrace cheerfully
Your darkness, enter courageously
Your fears, confront vigorously
Your disappointments, weather patiently
Your wounds, tend silently
Your failures, see honestly
Your integrity, grip firmly
Your gifts, develop humbly
Your victories, celebrate gratefully
Your insights, remember clearly
Your path, mark carefully
