APPROACHING CULTURE IN ESP CLASSES THROUGH AN UNDERSTANDING OF GENDER INEQUALITY AND DISTORTED REALITIES IN NEIL SIMON’S “PLAZA SUITE” AND TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER’S “FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE”
APPROACHING CULTURE IN ESP CLASSES THROUGH AN UNDERSTANDING OF GENDER INEQUALITY AND DISTORTED REALITIES IN NEIL SIMON’S “PLAZA SUITE” AND TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER’S “FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE”

Summary/Abstract: Nowadays a medical student’s training should be looked at from broader perspectives that should enable them to understand their future profession in its entire complexity. Medicine is not only about putting a correct diagnosis and establishing a treatment plan as, in order for the patient to follow all the doctor's instructions and ultimately to be healed, they have to be seen as individuals who come from a certain cultural context that will also shape some of their reactions and choices throughout the management of their disease. As foreign language teachers, we have started to see our role from a different perspective as well, overpassing the traditional boundaries that mainly saw us in charge with the transfer of the specialized vocabulary. Therefore, as part of their foreign language training, at the “Grigore T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Iasi, we have started to introduce topics which deal with the field of Medical Humanities (from the philologists’ perspective, i.e. mainly dealing with the importance of fiction in the field of medicine). After presenting the way in which these aims can be achieved, the paper will show the way in which medical students can be introduced to such notions as urban culture, feminism and discrimination, the importance of knowing how to decipher narratives). The two literary works to best illustrate these ideas are Neil Simon’s play, The Plaza Suite (1969) and Taffy Brodesser Akner’s novel, Fleishman is in trouble (2019). The 50 years that separate the two literary works will show the way in which the perspective upon women has changed, touching upon other elements as well, eventually trying to emphasize the way in which such a discussion could be effective in a foreign language class with medical students.

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