Auscultation

Auscultation Podcast
  • 5.0 (7)
  • MEDICINE

Add a bit of joy and perspective to your practice of healthcare with this humanities-inspired podcast that focuses the lens of art and literature to find fresh views on wellness and illness. Christopher Schifeling, a geriatric and palliative care physician and poet, shares immersive readings and viewings of artwork with a dose of humor. Enriching for any and everyone in healthcare: physicians, nurses, therapists, social workers, pharmacists, first responders, patients, etcetera.

  1. FEB 3

    E58 If We Must Die by Claude McKay

    Send us a text Description:  An immersive reading of If We Must Die by Claude McKay with reflection on military metaphors in healthcare and being a fighter. Website: https://anauscultation.wordpress.com Work: If We Must Die by Claude McKay If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursèd lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! References: Metaphor, Oxford English Dictionary, https://www.oed.com/dictionary/metaphor_n?tl=true  Metaphor, Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/metaphor  Aristotle. The Poetics, trans Ingram Bywater. Chapter 21, 1457b1-30  Kim S, Mills H, Brender T, McGowan S, Widera E, Chapman AC, Harrison KL, Lee S, Smith AK, Bamman D, Gologorskaya O, Cobert J. "My Mom Is a Fighter": A Qualitative Analysis of the Use of Combat Metaphors in ICU Clinician Notes. Chest. 2024 Nov;166(5):1162-1172.  Tate T. Your Father's a Fighter; Your Daughter's a Vegetable: A Critical Analysis of the Use of Metaphor in Clinical Practice. Hastings Cent Rep. 2020 Sep;50(5):20-29. Thibodeau PH, Hendricks RK, Boroditsky L. How Linguistic Metaphor Scaffolds Reasoning. Trends Cogn Sci. 2017 Nov;21(11):852-863.

    18 min

  2. JAN 6

    E57 With Child by Genevieve Taggard

    Send us a text Description:  An immersive reading of With Child by Genevieve Taggard with reflection on pregnancy, maternal mortality, pace, and isolation.  Website: https://anauscultation.wordpress.com Work: With Child by Genevieve Taggard  Now I am slow and placid, fond of sun, Like a sleek beast, or a worn one: No slim and languid girl—not glad With the windy trip I once had, But velvet-footed, musing of my own, Torpid, mellow, stupid as a stone. You cleft me with your beauty’s pulse, and now Your pulse has taken body. Care not how The old grace goes, how heavy I am grown, Big with this loneliness, how you alone Ponder our love. Touch my feet and feel How earth tingles, teeming at my heel! Earth’s urge, not mine,—my little death, not hers; And the pure beauty yearns and stirs. It does not heed our ecstacies, it turns With secrets of its own, its own concerns, Toward a windy world of its own, toward stark And solitary places. In the dark, Defiant even now, it tugs and moans To be untangled from these mother’s bones. References: Goldenberg RL, McClure EM. Maternal mortality. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2011 Oct;205(4):293-5. doi: 10.1016/j.ajog.2011.07.045. Epub 2011 Aug 4. PMID: 22083050; PMCID: PMC3893928. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/maternal-mortality  Hoyert DL. Maternal mortality rates in the United States, 2023. NCHS Health E-Stats. 2025. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.15620/cdc/174577. Qaseem A, Wilt TJ, McLean RM, Forciea MA; Clinical Guidelines Committee of the American College of Physicians; Denberg TD, Barry MJ, Boyd C, Chow RD, Fitterman N, Harris RP, Humphrey LL, Vijan S. Noninvasive Treatments for Acute, Subacute, and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Clinical Practice Guideline From the American College of Physicians. Ann Intern Med. 2017 Apr 4;166(7):514-530. doi: 10.7326/M16-2367. Epub 2017 Feb 14. PMID: 28192789. Moyer CA, Rounds J, Hannum JW. A meta-analysis of massage therapy research. Psychol Bull. 2004 Jan;130(1):3-18. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.130.1.3. PMID: 14717648.

    16 min

  3. 12/02/2025

    E56 [O sweet spontaneous] by E.E. Cummings

    Send us a text Description:  An immersive reading of [O sweet spontaneous] by E.E. Cummings with reflection on ways of understanding, science, and the clinician patient relationship Website: https://anauscultation.wordpress.com Work: [O sweet spontaneous] by E.E. Cummings O sweet spontaneous earth how often have the doting              fingers of prurient philosophers pinched and poked thee ,has the naughty thumb of science prodded thy         beauty      how often have religions taken thee upon their scraggy knees squeezing and buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive gods          (but true to the incomparable couch of death thy rhythmic lover              thou answerest them only with                               spring) References: Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/148505/o-sweet-spontaneous-5bf31932ce110

    13 min

  4. 11/04/2025

    E55 "Hollow-Sounding and Mysterious" by Christina Rossetti

    Send us a text Description:  An immersive reading of "Hollow-Sounding and Mysterious" by Christina Rossetti with reflection on Grave’s disease, hyperthyroidism, and hopelessness. Website: https://anauscultation.wordpress.com Work:  "Hollow-Sounding and Mysterious" by Christina Rossetti There's no replying To the Wind's sighing, Telling, foretelling, Dying, undying, Dwindling and swelling, Complaining, droning, Whistling and moaning, Ever beginning, Ending, repeating, Hinting and dinning, Lagging and fleeting— We've no replying Living or dying To the Wind's sighing. What are you telling, Variable Wind-tone? What would be teaching, O sinking, swelling, Desolate Wind-moan? Ever for ever Teaching and preaching, Never, ah never Making us wiser— The earliest riser Catches no meaning, The last who hearkens Garners no gleaning Of wisdom's treasure, While the world darkens :— Living or dying, In pain, in pleasure, We've no replying To wordless flying Wind's sighing. References: A Pageant and Other Poems (1881) https://books.google.com/books?id=9Sk-AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false   Arseneau M, Terrell E. “Our Self-Undoing”: Christina Rossetti’s Literary and Somatic Expressions of Graves’ Disease. Humanities. 2019; 8(1):57. https://doi.org/10.3390/h8010057 https://www.thyroid.org/about-american-thyroid-association/history/clark-t-sawin-history-resource-center/thyroid-history-timeline/

    15 min

  5. 10/07/2025

    E54 The Scream by Edvard Munch

    Send us a text Description:  An immersive viewing of The Scream by Edvard Munch with reflection on fear, jaundice, aliens and anxiety.   Website: https://anauscultation.wordpress.com Work:  By Edvard Munch - National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69541493   References: Friedlaender GE, Friedlaender LK. Edvard Munch and The Scream: A Cry for Help. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2018 Feb;476(2):200-202.  Rosenblum, Robert (1978). "Introduction". Edvard Munch: Symbols & Images (PDF). Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art. p. 8.  Finger S, Sirgiovanni E. The electrified artist: Edvard Munch's demons, treatments, and sketch of an electrotherapy session (1908-1909). J Hist Neurosci. 2024 Jul-Sep;33(3):241-274. https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/please-explain/october-2023/please-explain-why-do-we-scream

    13 min

  6. 09/02/2025

    E53 Disappear by Andrea Reilly

    Send us a text Description:  An immersive reading of Disappear by Andrea Reilly with reflection on clinical spaces, inadequacy, and anorexia. Website: https://anauscultation.wordpress.com Work: Disappear by Andrea Reilly: https://www.alphaomegaalpha.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/C3_AUT23.pdf

    16 min

  7. 08/05/2025

    E52 The Roses by Seth Peterson

    Send us a text Description:  An immersive reading of The Roses by Seth Peterson with reflection on boundaries, aging and decline.  Website: https://anauscultation.wordpress.com Work: Peterson S. The Roses. JAMA. 2025;333(16):1461.  https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2832004  Seth Peterson:  Bluesky: @drsethPT X: @sethpeterson.bsky.social

    17 min

  8. 07/01/2025

    E51 The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

    Send us a text Description:  An immersive reading of excerpts from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas translated by Lowell Bair with reflection on alternative and complementary care, rosemary and plot devices Website: https://anauscultation.wordpress.com Work: excerpts from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas translated by Lowell Bair “My son, all I have to give you is fifteen ecus, my horse, and the advice you’ve just heard. Your mother will give you the recipe for an ointment that a Gypsy woman taught her how to make: it miraculously heals any wound that doesn’t reach the heart. Make the most of all these gifts, and have a long, happy life.”   “At five o’clock the next morning d’Artagnan got up, went to the kitchen, and, among  several other ingredients that history has not revealed to us, asked for some wine, olive oil, and rosemary. Then he made an ointment, which he put on his many wounds. He changed the compresses himself and would not allow the doctor to be called in. Thanks to the efficacy of the Gypsy ointment and also, perhaps, to the absence of the doctor, by that evening he was back on his feet, and by the next day he had almost completely recovered.” “[It was] an isolated, sinister-looking little house in the distance. […] the man whom Athos had found with such difficulty lead him into his laboratory, where he had been wiring together the clattering bones of a skeleton. The body was assembled and the head lay on the table. Everything else in the room showed that he was devoted to the study of the natural sciences: there were labeled jars with snakes in them; dried lizards in black wooden frames gleamed like cut emeralds; bundles of fragrant herbs, no doubt endowed with powers unknown to ordinary men, hung from the ceiling.”  References: de Macedo LM, Santos ÉMD, Militão L, Tundisi LL, Ataide JA, Souto EB, Mazzola PG. Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L., syn Salvia rosmarinus Spenn.) and Its Topical Applications: A Review. Plants (Basel). 2020 May 21;9(5):651. Cervantes Saavedra, M. d., & Grossman, E. (2005). Don Quixote. 1st Ecco pbk. ed. Ecco. Dumas, Alexandre, and Lowell Bair. The Three Musketeers. New York, Bantam Dell, 2004.

    14 min
See All (59)

Trailer

5
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

Add a bit of joy and perspective to your practice of healthcare with this humanities-inspired podcast that focuses the lens of art and literature to find fresh views on wellness and illness. Christopher Schifeling, a geriatric and palliative care physician and poet, shares immersive readings and viewings of artwork with a dose of humor. Enriching for any and everyone in healthcare: physicians, nurses, therapists, social workers, pharmacists, first responders, patients, etcetera.

Information

  • Creator
    Auscultation Podcast
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    59
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Auscultation
  • Show Website
    Auscultation