Although it's not part of her formal job description, Debra Gillers, associate dean for academic affairs at Weill Cornell Medical College, saw a need to create the Humanities in Medicine program. "Our students are mostly in their 20s," she notes. "Most of them don't have personal experience with serious illness, loss or what it means to lead a dependent life."

To help students step outside themselves and into the scenarios of patients, Gillers has brought some of the brightest talents in the country to Weill Cornell. They have spoken about cancer (Susan Sontag), depression (William Styron) and AIDS (Larry Kramer, Tony Kushner). Musicians have performed works that evoke the passion of human experience. Noteworthy painters (Chuck Close) and others have shared insights from their work.

"We've had unbelievable moments in which we witnessed the most intimate and profound aspects about what it means to be ill," Gillers says.

She also taps the genius of well-known actors and writers. Presentations have included staged readings of plays ("Wit," "The Last Letter") whose characters struggle and suffer in ways most students can only imagine.

David Feldshuh, the Schwartz Center's artistic director, talked about writing his play "Miss Evers' Boys" at WCMC. The play is about the 1932 Tuskegee syphilis experiments, in which the government let black test subjects develop the disease and die.

Most recently the program staged a reading March 2 of Arthur Kopit's off-Broadway play "Wings," in which the central character, Emily Stilson, suffers a stroke and loses the ability to process language. Kopit himself directed.

"I believe that our interest in many things, in addition to science, informs our understanding of the patient's experience," Gillers says. She established a similar program at Stony Book medical school, where one of her colleagues and friends was the Rev. Robert S. Smith, Cornell Catholic Community chaplain.

Another accomplishment of the program, says Gillers: "It creates a community across interests."

Humanities in Medicine collaborates with the Frick Collection in a program called the Art of Observation, under the direction of Dr. Lyuba Konopasek, of pediatrics. Students study portraiture and photographs of patients at the Frick, exercises to hone observation and presentation skills.

Weill Cornell med students seem to appreciate this additional dimension in their studies. They've told Gillers: "Give us more! Give us more!"

George Lowery is projects manager for the Office of Humanities Communications.