Life is Short, Art is Long

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Life is Short, Art is Long

• 17th Dr. Sun Yat Sen Oration
• Hong Kong College of Family Physicians
• May 28, 2006

2
as in all the other arts, those who practise
them differ much from one another in dexterity
and knowledge Hippocrates (460-377 BC)
3
The Art of Family Medicine
Four Cut Sunflowers, Paris, 1887.
www.vggallery.com
4
Mr. Peter Pang

• 25 year-old computer programmer who had been
  under my care since the age of 12
• Admitted to ICU because serum potassium was 1.8
  mmoles/L
• Suspected periodic paralysis complicating
  thyrotoxicosis
• Signed DAMA form

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Mr. Peter Pang

• He could not understand what the doctor told him
  was wrong with him
• He was very scared when the doctor told him that
  he would be given radioactive iodine
• He thought radioactive iodine was the same as
  radiotherapy
• His main concern was hair loss

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The Art of Listening Speaking
The Sower, Arles, 1888. www.vggallery.com
7
Mrs. Nancy Wan

• 48 year-old high school teacher
• Dizziness since an episode of AOM
• Saw more than 10 doctors including ENT surgeons
  and neurologists
• All investigations including MRI were normal
• Taking atenolol, piracetam, stemetil, librium and
  ginko leaves, but still dizzy

8
Mrs. Nancy Wan

• Living with husband aged 55 and son aged 20
• Husband recently retired from work as a clerk,
  used to be a businessman
• Very worried that she could not work because she
  was the bread winner
• Very afraid of upsetting husband

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The Art of Healing
Harvest at La Crau, Arles, 1888. www.vggallery.com
10
Madam Wong

• 55 year-old divorced lady living with son
• Health screening found hypercholesterolaemia
  (TC8.1 mmoles/L, HDL 1.89mmoles/L)
• Treated by dietary advice
• Son supervises her diet closely
• Wt reduced from 49 to 45 Kg in 3 m

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Madam Wong - Video
12
The Art of First Do No Harm
Portrait of Doctor Gachet, Auvers-sue-Oise, 1890.
www.vggallery.com
13
Mrs. Wai Tai

• 70 year-old widow living alone in HK
• Three daughters immigrated to Canada
• Pre-immigration health check showed a hilar mass
  on CXR
• Referred to the respiratory physician inoperable
  bronchogenic carcinoma

14
Mrs. Wai Tai

• She decided not to have chemotherapy
• She was not afraid of dying
• Her only hope was to spend more time with her
  daughters
• Her visa application was rejected

15
The Art of Caring
The Langlois Bridge at Arles, 1888.
www.vggallery.com
16
Marshy Landscape, Hague,1883. www.vggallery.com
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Vincent van Gogh,1853-1890
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I should like to paint portraits which would
appear after a century to people living then like
apparitions. Letter W22, June1890.www.vggalle
ry.com
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Passion

• my aim in my life is to make pictures and
  drawings, as many and as well as I can then, at
  the end of my life, I hope to pass away, looking
  back with love and tender regret, and thinking,
  Oh, the pictures I might have made!
• Letter 338, Nov 1883.
  www.vggallery.com

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The Wheat Field with Cypresses, Saint-Remy 1889.
www.vggallery.com
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Practice

• I intend to make a series of them, and hope to
  do better ones than the first two. It is a
  method that I had already tried in Holland some
  time ago...
• Letter 478, April 1888. www.vggallery.com

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Self Portraits, 1886-1889. www.vggallery.com
23
Imagination

• The imagination is certainly a faculty which we
  must develop, one which alone can lead us to the
  creation of a more exalting and consoling nature
  than the single brief glance at reality
• Letter B3, April 1888.
  www.vggallery.com

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Starry Night, Saint-Remy 1889. www.vggallery.com
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Uniqueness

• You know that the peony is Jeannins, the
  hollyhock belongs to Quost, but the sunflower is
  somewhat my own.
• Letter 573, Jan 1889. www.vggallery.com

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Vase with Twelve Flowers, Arles 1888.
www.vggallery.com
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Art is Complex

• His ideas cover so much ground, examining what
  is humane and how one should look at the world,
  that one must free oneself from anything remotely
  linked to convention to understand what he was
  trying to say...
• Theo van Gogh, Letter to Jo, Feb 1889.
  www.vggallery.com

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Thatched Cottages at Cordeville, Auvers-sur-Oise,
1890. www.vggallery.com
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Our value to medicine lies in the
differences. Ian R. McWhinney, 1996