Aired on Tuesday, September 9th.
On this edition of StudioTulsa on Health, guest host John Schumann speaks by phone with Dr. David Schiedermayer, a reflective and soft-spoken physician/author who is based in Wisconsin, tells a good yarn, and has worked in the fields of medicine and health for many years now. He's been an internist and a hospitalist in the past, and he's now focused on palliative care. Oh, and he's also one heck of a harmonica player. In fact, Dr. Schiedermayer deliberately sets out to blend his thoughtful doctoring and his bluesy music-making as often as possible -- with his patients and with their families, and with just about everyone else -- and he tells us why, and even provides a few instrument-at-hand demonstrations, on today's show. "Music has charms to soothe the savage breast," wrote an English playwright, rather famously, in the late 1600s. But it of course does much more than this -- it doesn't just soothe or comfort us; it actively heals us, grounds us, enlightens us, and brings us peace. (Or at least it has the potential to do so.) And not just the "us" who happens to be the patient, as Dr. Schiedermayer makes clear, but all of us -- everyone in the room, or everyone with ears to hear.
"Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death"
We speak today by phone with Katy Butler, an accomplished journalist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, The Best American Science Writing, The Best American Essays, and The Best Buddhist Writing.