I’ve written a few times about Veneta Masson, a nurse practitioner who wrote in Health Affairs and in the Washington Post about her decision to forego further mammograms despite the fact that she was in a higher-risk category.
She sent me a YouTube video animation of her poem, “Reference Range,” which I’m pleased to share with you.
I think the poem and the video are beautiful, touching on important issues of how meaningless numbers and scores may be, subject to misinterpretation.
“Is it normal, you ask.
Normal’s a shell game you seldom win.”
Comments
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Chris
February 11, 2011 at 4:50 pmExcellent
Carolyn Thomas
February 16, 2011 at 11:04 amThanks so much for posting this beautifully compelling video poem.
As a heart attack survivor, I can relate to the endless numbers, letters, the colour yellow, and of course those”flat lines interrupted by a pattern of steeples and languid waves” that all cardiac patients get used to staring at in quiet desperation.
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