Soulful thoughts about Brookline, Massachusetts

A country doctor, practising in the same small town for more than twenty years, blogs about a visit to Brookline and attending Thomas Moore’s summer course on Cape Cod,

"On our early morning dog walks we see residents and medical students hurrying to work with stethoscopes around their necks. There are joggers everywhere. We pass the Lown Cardiovascular Center, named after Dr. Bernard Lown, who pioneered cardioversion for atrial fibrillation. His book The Lost Art of Healing from a dozen years ago is a must-read for doctors, particularly now. My patient and mentor, Clarine, who told me from her sick bed to write, and who gave me Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul, also gave me a copy of The Lost Art of Healing.

Actually, Thomas Moore himself - a humble man - has said that even titles of books you haven’t read yet can be an inspiration. We attended his seminar on Cape Cod last summer, entitled "Care of the Soul". We missed a day of that course because of our dog’s illness. That was the summer our dog died, and what we learned from her passing paralleled what we learned from the course.