In Clio I Trust

What first attracted me to history was the ability to trace humanity’s path throughout the ages, and thus get a greater appreciation of how we ended up in our current situation. As much as the study of history is often chided by numerophiles the world over, it lies at the essence of human existence and attempts to answer our deepest questions. Perhaps the greatest question of all time, “what is the origin or life and how did we get here,” is at its core a historical question. In order to accurately answer it we might require science, but it a science of the past. Suffice it to say I have always thought that history has a great deal to teach us, and is a worthy component of the study of any subject.

Before reading Clio in the Clinic by Jaqueline Duffin, my interpretation of adding historical study to all disciplines was along the lines of approaching the study of that discipline from a historical perspective. It was not, as the contributors of Clio in the Clinic chose, the application of a historian’s techniques and practices to the practice of medicine. Having become aware of this alternate interdisciplinary approach as it applied to medical practice, I realized that I had been a proponent of it for years, only in a slightly different context. One of my favourite professors—who grew up in Communist Poland and frequently related his misadventures (perhaps why I enjoyed his lectures so much)—told us one day that students who graduated with history degrees were often recruited by the KGB and the secret police. Turns out the wily commies appreciated the transferable skills of a historian: research, attention to detail, and above all,  the innate practice to always account for the source of the information.

Each article in Duffin’s book points to a different attribute that history had taught him or her, and illustrates how the application of this attribute to the medical practice resulted in better patient care. Often this came from the practitioner's belief in the past as a valuable source of information, both with regard to patient histories, but also through the examination of diseases that has long ago ceased to make the faintest of blips on a physician's radar. As I was reading through the various case stories I realized that these were the types of doctors I would want to be my health care providers; then I realized that it was their thoroughness, attention to detail, analytical skills--in short those qualities they shared with historians--that so appealed to me with respect to their clinical ability. And thus I realized that I trust historians: I trust their ability to dig to the bottom of a pile of evidence for the truth, I trust their inherent objectivity, and I trust their unique ability to admit error when they are wrong. Part of this is probably a sense of pride for my former discipline, but at least some of it comes from the knowledge that history is a good teacher, whether we listen to her or not, and that the lessons she has to teach us are as never ending as time itself.

Middlesex Lite: An Identity Crisis of Smaller Proportions

Normally when I've really enjoy reading a book it turns out that I was able to really relate to one of the main characters, an element of the plot, or the setting. Although I delighted in reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, I was hard pressed to pin-point exactly what part of a story about the coming-of-age of an American hermaphrodite I connected with. It was a few days later when I realized that even though I wasn't forced to come to terms with being a hermaphrodite as a teen and young adult, like everyone else I know there were still physical and psychological aspects of my personality that were at times difficult to digest. So while my personal story was definitely less novel-worth than Callie/Cal Stephanides, I certainly underwent an identity challenge of my own.

In adolescence I struggled with the usual angst that has been overdone by Hollywood since the dawn of film: identity, relationships, popularity, clothes, skin, etc. But it is only with the clarity that comes from hindsight that I've been able to place the deeper source of my uneasiness as a teen and early 20-something: my health. Almost like Callie was oblivious to the fact that her hermaphroditism was the source of her relationship difficulties, I was unaware of the psychological impact my problems were having on me. Unable to properly accept my condition, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin, a problem that I now attribute to the fact that no counseling was given to me to help adjust to what was a remarkable burden initially handed to me as a 10-year old.

Even today I struggle to accept that this is the way I am. While I uphold very few pretenses about my personality, looks, or general outlook on issues (as anyone who has spent much time with me will know) I am yet to come to terms with my physical condition and stop trying to "fake it." In an almost asinine effort to pretend that my problems don't exist, I regularly challenge my body to accomplish what it literally cannot in an effort to not succumb to my own limitations. Despite the logical reasoning of my brain, it seems I can't fight off the baser instincts to do what I want and be limited by no man except my own imagination.

So what did Middlesex mean to me? Well, for one, it was a killer read, and I thoroughly enjoyed being immersed not only into the life of a character struggling through such an interesting biology, but the sweeping depictions of World War I-era Anatolia and middle-twentieth century Detroit pandered to the historian in me. But on the more serious note I have been talking about in this post, Middlesex showed me that whatever our struggle is, and we all have one, everything is a lifelong journey, and it is naive of me to think I should be over it by now. As the various present-day segments of the book show, Cal is still struggling to figure out his own sexuality and sexual interactions. Perhaps this whole notion of teenage angst is not so "teenage" after all: while there are certainly extra pressures during that time of our lives, I don't think that it is something we can ever grow out of. Life will always have problems, and those problems will always gnaw away at us in one way or another. Perhaps like the fictional Cal we should write a memoir about it. Or perhaps we should just keep on keepin' on, comforted by the knowledge that figuring all this out is the stuff life is made of.