Victoria Sweet is an American physician, author and advocate for what is termed "

slow medicine Slow medicine is a movement calling for change in medical practice which took inspiration from the wider slow food movement. Practitioners of slow medicine have published several different definitions, but the common emphasis is on the word "slow," ...

". She is also a historian of medicine who has studied the writings of

Hildegard of Bingen Hildegard of Bingen (german: Hildegard von Bingen; la, Hildegardis Bingensis; 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher ...

, a 12th century German

abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa''), also known as a mother superior, is the female superior of a community of Catholic nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Copt ...

and medical therapist.

Biography

Early life

Victoria Sweet was born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. Her ancestors came to California from Germany in 1836.

Education

As an undergraduate she studied at Stanford University, where she majored in mathematics, with a minor in the Classics. She received her MD degree in 1977 at age 27 from the University of California Irvine School of Medicine. She received an M.A. in 1995 and a Ph.D. in 2003, both degrees in History of Health Sciences, from the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It con ...

Work as medical historian

Sweet's doctorate study was based on the medical treatise of

, written in Latin, entitled ''Causae et Curae'' (''"Causes and Cures"''). Sweet draws special attention to Hildegard's use of the word ''viriditas''. It comes from the Latin word for "green," and was used to refer to the color of plants, as well as meaning "vigor" and "youthfulness." Sweet points out how Hildegard also used the word ''viriditas'' in the broader sense of the power of plants to put forth leaves and fruit, and the analogous intrinsic power of human beings to grow and to heal. Inspired by Hildegard, Sweet began to ask herself as she was treating her patients whether anything was interfering with the ''viriditas'' or the intrinsic power to heal—to relate to healing like being a gardener who removes impediments and nourishes, in a sanctuary-like setting.

Views on medicine

During the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century, while obtaining her doctorate in medical history, Sweet was also working as an internal medicine physician at the old Laguna Honda Hospital in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. In the year 2010 a new hospital facility was built and repurposed. The old Laguna Honda Hospital was a long-term treatment and rehabilitation hospital. She describes the old hospital as being the last " almshouse" in America. The conjunction of studying the healing philosophy of Hildegard of Bingen along with working at the old Laguna Honda Hospital helped Sweet formulate principles of what she refers to as "

". Sweet says that "sick people need time...and their doctors do too....Doctors need time to sit with their patients, to think, to read, to consult, to catch their mistakes."

Pilgrimage

Over a four-year period, Sweet walked the 1,200 mile (1,900 km) Medieval pilgrimage-trail known as the "Way of St. James" (or in Spanish, the "Camino de Santiago"), from southern France to the north-west coast of Spain. For four different years, Sweet would return to walk a 400-mile (600 km) section of the trail, in order to complete the whole trail. While hiking the pilgrimage trail, Sweet experienced a sense of connectedness and fellow-feeling, based on mutual assistance and reciprocal compassion, which she then brought to her evolving practice of medicine.

Published works

*''Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing'' (2017), Riverhead Books (Penguin). *''God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine'' (2013), Riverhead Books (Penguin). *''Rooted in the Earth, Rooted in the Sky: Hildegard of Bingen and Premodern Medicine'' (Studies in Medieval History and Culture) (2006), Routledge.

Honors, decorations, awards and distinctions

Guggenheim Fellowship for 2014-2015 in the category of Creative Arts, General Non-fiction

References

External links

video: Victoria Sweet TEDx talk; Aug. 15, 2013

Transcript of talk: "Dr. Victoria Sweet on Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing" (Talks at Google); Feb. 1, 2018 {{DEFAULTSORT:Sweet, Victoria Living people American women physicians American medical historians Health care quality Slow movement People from Los Angeles Year of birth missing (living people) Stanford University alumni University of California, Irvine alumni University of California, San Francisco alumni Historians from California 21st-century American women