The Syracuse Symposium 2003: "Journeys" will turn a special focus on "The Journey at the End of Life" Oct. 28 with a visit and keynote lecture by surgeon, medical historian and best-selling author Dr. Sherwin Nuland.
The lecture begins at 7:30 p.m. in Grant Auditorium in the College of Law's White Hall and is free and open to the public. Visitor parking is available on a paid, space-available basis in the Irving and University Avenue garages.
Nuland's best-selling book "How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter" (Knopf, 1995) won the National Book Award and has been translated into 17 languages. Death, Nuland says, should not be viewed as a medical failure to be experienced in lonely, clinical settings, but rather as a meaningful part of life - its final journey.
"Death belongs to the dying and to those who love them. Though it may be sullied by the incursive havoc of disease, it must not be permitted to be further disrupted by well-meant exercises in futility," he says.
Nuland is a clinical professor of surgery at the Yale School of Medicine. His current book is "Lost in America: A Journey With My Father" (Knopf, 2003)
The Oct. 28 lecture is co-sponsored by the Joel Potash Fund, the SUNY Upstate Medical University's Department of Family Medicine and the Upstate Medical University Foundation.
The Syracuse Symposium, presented for the University by The College of Arts and Sciences, is an annual intellectual festival celebrating interdisciplinary thinking, imagining and creating. The 2003 theme is "Journeys"; journeys of exploration and discovery, intellectual journeys, mythical and artistic journeys, migrations of peoples, exiles, liberations, pilgrimages and more. The series includes lectures, exhibits, performances and other special events.
