Winter 2017-18: The Body

Features

Caring for the Dead, and the Living

January 18, 2018 –

When Chris Wilder ’92 started college, he was aiming for a career in aviation management. That plan never took off, but now, some three decades later, his work involves a different kind of departures.

“Being a funeral director agrees with me,” says the business management major who works for Cournoyer...

Portraits of Endangered Animals: Exhibit Brings Together Two Alumni

January 18, 2018 –

Our hope is that people will look these creatures in the eyes, and be inspired to care, while there is still time. – Photographer Joel Santore’s Photo Ark website

A National Geographic exhibit calling attention to the plight of endangered animal species has a Keene State connection – times two...

Murder, She Writes

January 18, 2018 –

When Janet Smith Heijens ’88 retired from an international career in business, there was murder in her future. Or, to be more specific, murder mysteries.

“I’ve always loved to read and I’ve always had it in the back of my mind that when I retire, I will read all the...

Putting Medical Students in Their Patients’ Shoes (and Wheelchairs)

January 18, 2018 –

It’s one thing to understand the constraints that elders live with, and quite another to experience them first-hand.

Back in 2005, Marilyn Gugliucci ’76, professor and director of Geriatrics Education and Research at the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine, encountered a medical...

The Body in Motion

January 18, 2018 –

“I feel that the best way I can contribute to this world is by making things,” says Alexander Davis ’14. You might call what Davis makes “body art”; he’s a Boston-based dancer and choreographer whose recent accomplishments include being awarded a Live Arts Boston Grant and being presented by World...

Fine-Tuning Your Body, Uncluttering Your Mind

January 8, 2018 –

“The first time I ran a race it was a struggle to finish,” says Pat Zemianek ’63 . “I hadn’t trained.” That was shortly after her husband, Steve Zemianek ’63, died unexpectedly in 2000. In honor of Steve, a much beloved high school English teacher and coach for track and...

Labor and Delivery: A Midwife's Tale

January 8, 2018 –

Jessica Lewis Satrape ’97 remembers the first childbirth she witnessed. The mother labored hard, breathing into her contractions for hours. A nurse listened to the baby’s heartbeat every 15 minutes or so. Meanwhile, the midwife simply sat in a rocking chair and rocked. “I remember just being amazed,” says Satrape...

Where Life Began: Elliot Hospital

January 8, 2018 –

Of the thousands and thousands of people who have thrived, learned amazing things, found love and happiness, expanded their horizons, and grown in so many other ways at Keene State, did you know that several of those over the age of 45 were born on campus, too? They took their...

Online Extras

Amber Davisson: A Teaching Moment

Life in a Nursing Home

What’s it like to live in a nursing home? Here’s a first-hand report by Dr. David Drozda, a former student of Dr. Marilyn Gugliucci ’76. It’s taken from a journal article the two coauthored.

“It was a frightening moment to be sitting in the [wheel] chair for the first time. Several things hit me all at once. The first is that I suddenly have to look up at everyone in order to make eye contact, and they have to look down at me. … I was conscious of the feeling that staff were ‘talking over my head,’ literally. … It made me feel vulnerable to have someone consistently direct their attention to a source that was both above and behind me. …

“Adapting to this environment was complex; a mix of new surroundings, new modes of transporting myself, dependence on others and strangers all around me. As I enter new environments now in my role as student doctor, I am reminded of these past feelings and remain conscious to the fact that all the people I encounter and provide care for are also adapting, which is far more challenging than I would have ever thought had I not lived in a nursing home. The word ‘pride’ is more prevalent in my lexicon – the importance of being allowed to struggle through things on your own, without initial assistance. And I wonder to this day what happens to people when they can no longer experience a sense of accomplishment; how do they adapt?”

More Stories about Dr. Gugliucci’s Nursing Home Program

• Medical Student Checks into Nursing Home for 10-Day Stay
• Medical Student Completes 10-Day Stay at Nursing Home
• UNE Medical Student Completes Nursing Home Stay

Writing about Food

Here’s another piece of prose written by a student in Jeff Friedman’s Cooking, Eating, and Dreaming

Chasing July

By Lindsey Pinault

The marks he left were like tread marks in the snow, they slowly vanished with the changing of the seasons, but when they were fresh they were crisp and clear, painfully cold to the touch. Once, we sat beneath the cherry trees, watching the stars twinkle like the fireflies of summer. Back then our love was a pink lady, fresh and sweet, budding from delicate, pure, white petals. But that was before the frost came, rolling over us slowly and dissolving the passion as it does the carnage of fall. Leaving the dead, browned leaves to stick to my hair like the taste of his breath on my lips.

One Stall Fits All

There are many reasons why a person would seek out a single-occupancy restroom at any given time. Being transgender or not conforming to gender norms is only one of them.

The 2016 passage of the so-called “Bathroom Bill” in North Carolina has made it acceptable for people to confront other people in multi-stall public restrooms, notes Hunter Kirschner, Keene State’s program support assistant for LGBTQ students. The bill, which required people to use public bathrooms for the gender assigned to them at birth, was partially overturned. Still, for transgender people the possibility of being harassed has turned a natural bodily function into an uneasy or even distressing situation.