Medicine Show

By PATRICIA WEST-BARKER

Art show to reflect beliefs of doctor and author Lewis Mehl- Mardona

At 21, Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona was the youngest person ever to graduate from the prestigious Stanford Medical School. He is board certified in family medicine, geriatrics and psychiatry. He has earned a doctorate in clinical psychology in addition to his medical degree. He has served on the faculties of six universities. And he wants to reinvent the way medicine is practiced in the United States.

Modern Western medicine — based as it is on high-tech testing, “managed care,” a very brief office visit and an “expert paradigm” in which the physician is presumed to know more about the problem at hand than the patient — has eliminated much of what he considers the art of healing. To set things right, he says, medicine needs to appreciate — and make use of — the profound power of narrative in the healing of physical and mental illness.

Narrative medicine, Mehl-Madrona said in an earlier interview, “is a (storytelling) approach to health and disease steeped in a understanding of diversity.”

People have stories to explain their lives and their illnesses, Mehl-Madrona said — and those stories contain the seeds of healing. “What we do with these seeds,” he said, “can make all the difference for healing and transcendence and sometimes even for curing disease.”

Mehl-Madrona has written numerous professional papers about his work and four books for the general public.

The first book, Coyote Medicine: Lessons from Native American Healing, published in 1997, is still in print. In it, he tells his own story, taking readers through his medical training and early explorations of American Indian healing practices. The second, Coyote Healing: Miracles in Native Medicine, focused on elements common to healing stories and the people who use them to improve their well-being. His third book, Coyote Wisdom: The Power of Story in Healing, shares some of the stories he tells to help people believe that healing is possible.

His most recent book, released just this week, is Narrative Medicine: The Use of History and Story in the Healing Process. Summing up much of his life’s work to date, Mehl-Madrona examines the indigenous roots of storytelling as a healing modality — he is part Cherokee and Lakota — and presents numerous case histories to demonstrate how healers willing to listen can use the stories people tell about themselves and their illnesses to expand their possibilities for healing.

On Aug. 3, Mehl-Madrona will be in Santa Fe to celebrate the release of Narrative Medicine at a booksigning at Convergence Gallery on West San Francisco Street. His appearance also marks the opening reception for “The Medicine Show,” a group exhibition by 16 artists responding to the concepts of “narrative medicine,”"healing” or “story.”

Convergence Gallery owner San Merideth met Mehl-Madrona at a workshop in Santa Fe a few years ago, and she was impressed enough with the man and his message to attend one of the weeklong retreats he conducts in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, where he is associate professor of family medicine and psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine.

“It was an excellent experience,” said Meridith. The workshop included a visit from an energy healer, several sweat lodges at nearby Indian reservations and encounters with other practitioners of indigenous medicine.

“Lewis feels that the central unit of meaning in our lives is the story that we tell about our lives and that others tell about our lives,” she said. “Those stories are not set in stone — they are something we can change if they are not working for us — but we need the support of family and community to change them.”

Mehl-Madrona was looking for a larger space than a bookstore to celebrate the publication of his new book, Meridith said, so she volunteered the use of her gallery — and invited a group of artists to submit their interpretations of the book’s theme for a show to run from Monday to Aug. 16.

“Lewis said that he really liked that idea because of the collaborative energy it would bring to the event,” she said.

Artists selected for the show have submitted oils and acrylics on canvas and assemblages — in modes from abstract to highly representational — and sizes ranging from “an itty-bitty painting to 6-foot oils,” Meridith said.

The work is whimsical and fun and very serious, she said, adding, “Even the process of producing the work for show has been healing for some of the artists.”

IF YOU GO

What: The Medicine Show- a group art exhibition and booksigning with Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona

When: Opening reception and booksigning is from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Aug. 3. Exhibit will run from July 30 to Aug. 16. Collected Works will be selling copies of Mehl-Madrona’s Narrative Medicine at the event.

Where: Convergence Gallery, 219 W. San Francisco St.

For information: Call 986-1245

(c) 2007 The Santa Fe New Mexican. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.