Pen-icillin Prescribed for the Soul: Reflecting on a Healing Session with Dr. Leah Kaminsky: 11am, Saturday, 30th August 2014







Pen-icillin Prescribed for the Soul:
Reflecting on a Healing Session with Dr. Leah Kaminsky
Speaking Date: 11am, Saturday, 30th August 2014


A gentle pinch of humanity and a healthy dose of eye contact were the doctor's orders as a keen, intimate group of attendees filed into our library and benefited from the nurturing presence of Dr. Leah Kaminsky:
* medical general practitioner
* mother,
* author
* engaging performer
* and immensely compassionate human being.

Author of Stitching Things Together and editor for The Pen and the Stethoscope as well as the Australian version of Creative Non Fiction Magazine, in a 90 minute enthralling consultation, Leah discussed her passage into the world of medical practice and how writing helped her to re-connect with her core and in turn reconnect with her patients.

“It’s important to listen to the narrative behind the symptoms when treating a patient. We should look beyond the illness to see the real story behind it and zero in on a person’s ‘emotional temperature.’ Writing has helped me to become a better doctor because it encourages compassion and empathy.”






A humble speaker reluctant to acknowledge or take credit for her contribution towards the community's better health and wellbeing, Leah's achievements could very well have been cast into obscurity by her very humility if not for two vital antecdotes: 

* The overwhelming evidence documenting
   Leah's efforts through her writings, local media coverage
   and peer-produced publications
* The most significant witness of all...her patients.

Brought to life by Leah's stories,
it was pure joy to to see Leah re-create her
most memorable consultations and patients
with such affection, animation and loving humour.

Leah made the prognosis for good
community health abundantly clear:
good medicine starts with the heart,
not with the head. 

 
To learn more about Leah Kaminsky and Leah's works,
I recommend you visit Leah's website:
http://leahkaminsky.com/
 

Mentone Public Library sincerely thanks you, Leah,
for showing our patrons the healing power of the earnest word.





 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Judy's Open Mic reflection, 24 June 2023

Judy's Open Mic reflection, 24 June 2023 Last Saturday (24 June 2023) we had a great ‘Open Mic’ session. Stimulating writings by several members revealed their literary talents either through ‘in depth’ revelations of lives or humorous accounts of every day observations.  Pip, Jan and Elsie opened up about their inner thoughts giving us a deeper understanding of even our own lives. Bruce was in poetic and artistic form, and Graeme took a light-hearted look at Russian politics. Word choice and poetic pattern were exemplary in both cases. Terri, Tony and Judy attempted another radio play script, unrehearsed, which sadly needed better secretarial management (my bad!). Mind you Terri did a superb ‘boy voice’ for her character struggling up Balcombe Rd with a horse and dray in 1899 going to the races at Mentone Race Course; and Tony was equally in charge of his masculine character. Ron also had stories about a Jack Russell named Jill,   (There is a Jack and Jill Russell joke there somew
Read more

Lover, Husband, Father, Monster and the art of coercive control - Author talk with Graeme and Elsie Johnstone

Image
Lover, Husband, Father, Monster and the art of coercive control What a pleasure it was to have Elsie and Graeme present with us on the difficult topic of coercive control on Saturday, 15 July, using their trilogy of books as a springboard for conversations. Graeme and Elsie Johnstone wrote three inter-connecting novels on this topic under the banner of ‘Lover, Husband, Father, Monster’, entitled ‘Her Story’, ‘His Story’ and ‘The Aftermath’. The works are best read in the order of 1 The woman’s perspective 2 The man’s perspective and 3 The views of those who it affected.  When they were working on these books, Elsie and Graeme decided to write every time it rained and being Ireland, they wrote a ‘bloody lot’. Their task was to find out ‘What drives two men on either side of the planet to commit such awful acts, both in Australia and Ireland, and how have their marriages come to this?’   The novel is set in Dublin, and it focuses on the marriage of Jennifer, a legal graduate, and Stewart
Read more

Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder Author talk review and Writer Meets Reader promotion

Image
Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder and Kerryn Mayne coming again for Writer meets reader Kerryn Mayne.  What a breath of fresh air! Some people are born to speak in public and Kerryn is one of those lucky ones. We could have listened to her all day and not been bored. A full house at our Mentone Public Library was entertained and enthralled as we listened to Kerryn traverse many subjects – life as seen by a police officer, the busy and sometimes hectic life of a mother of four children under five, two of them nine-month-old twins, living with a young family in Aspendale Gardens, the goodness in almost everybody, even hardened criminals (there but for the grace of God, etc).  And those were just the side topics! What Kerryn was there for was to speak to us about the journey she took through pregnancy and COVID to produce a magnificently entertaining novel, ‘Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder’, a sort of crime fiction / psychological study / philosophical / human story, set in Belgrave abo
Read more