It is becoming increasingly more difficult for patients to “go it alone” within the current structure of the American healthcare system. Whether it’s a family member, care manager, or professional advocate, most people need someone by their side in order to get good care. Join Gail Gazelle, Medical Director at Circle of Caring at Hospice of the Good Shepherd, for a two-hour interactive program that will provide valuable tips and tools to empower patients to get care that is tailored to their individual needs. The program will take place on Tuesday, December 1 at 7:00 pm; registration begins at 6:30 pm (please come early to register).

Participants will learn about several topics including:

•Why patient advocacy and empowerment has become a “hot button” issue
•Why it is critical for patients to be advocates for themselves and to have advocates in the health care system
•Skills to becoming an advocate (for yourself and your patients)
•Tips on how to most effectively communicate with physicians and other health care professionals
•Tips on what to do when it doesn’t seem like the patients needs are being heard

By the end of the session participants will understand why patient empowerment can lead to better care. They will also understand why having an advocate is important and will have developed skills for actively partnering with doctors, nurses and other health care professionals.

In addition to her work with Circle of Caring at Hospice of the Good Shepard Gail Gazelle MD, FACP, FAAHPM, is Direct Patient Advocate, and Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Responding to interest expressed by the tutors and learners of the library's notable ESL program, the library’s Legal Series will hold a special program on Wednesday, December 2 at 7:00 pm called Immigration Law for New Workers and Their Families: How to be Legally Employed, Unite With Your Family and Begin the Path to Citizenship. The talk will take place at the library and will be given by Newton resident Attorney Bethany S. Mandell who is an associate in the immigration section of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, PC. A frequently speaker, Attorney Mandell has contributed articles on immigration issues for the Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) and the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). She is an active member of the New England AILA Chapter, and has served as a member of the Immigrant and Refugee Subcommittee of the Governor's Commission on Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence in Massachusetts. The program will include a question and answer period. Those wishing to submit questions ahead of time are encouraged to leave a message with the Reference Department 617-796-1380 x:2404 or contact Susan Becam, ESL Coordinator, at 617-796-1364.

“On my third visit to the [Van Gogh] Museum, I feel like a dignitary. The curator has assembled the drawings I’d requested….she leads me to an adjacent room. In the center of a large, wooden table rests a small book. ‘Vincent’s sketchbook,’ she says, 'I never get to show it.’” So writes Boston poet Carol Dine in her extraordinary volume, Van Gogh in Poems, a collection of her latest work that was written as a result of several trips to the archives of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam between 2002 and 2007. During that time Dine spent hours pouring over Van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo and found that they were, “filled with contradictions for what they said about the artist, and what they didn’t say….they reveal Van Gogh as an astute observer of nature, as a critic of his own art, as a man with a tattered soul.” Join Carol Dine on Tuesday, December 8 at 7:00 pm for what promises to be an extraordinary look at the work of Vincent Van Gogh through the voice of Dine’s poetic muse.

Each poem in Van Gogh in Poems is named for the drawing or painting that inspired it. Written in Van Gogh’s voice, Dine brings readers a holistic experience by interspersing fragments from Van Gogh’s letters with lines of her poems. “It was his own letters that led me to his voice,” Dine says. “I heard Vincent speak through his words to his brother, and I took a leap of faith that I could speak for him, or in a sense, with him.”

Carol Dine is the author of two books of poetry Naming the Sky and Trying to Understand the Lunar Eclipse, and a memoir, Places in the Bone. Dine’s poetry is widely published in literary magazines, including Blue Mesa Review, The Bitter Oleander, Boulevard, and Salamander. Dine has been a poet-in-residence at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Ragdale and the Wurlitzer Foundation. She teaches creative writing and writing on art at Suffolk University and Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Come on Wednesday, December 9 at 7:00 pm for a program that will offer useful, practical and important information to help people plan for an uncertain future if they are currently out of work or are not secure in their present job situation. Facilitated by John Spoto, the seminar will cover topics such as:
•The importance of having an emergency fund
•Developing a budget/cash flow statement so you know how much money is coming in and going out
•Health Insurance (COBRA) and other insurance issues
•Tax implications of a job loss
•What to do and how to handle employer retirement plans when you lose a job
•Tax deductions that can be taken during your new job search
John Spoto is the founder and principal of Sentry Financial Planning, LLC. Prior to that, he spent over 16 years running his own finance and equipment leasing company, providing financing solutions to medium and large corporations.

The Children's Room is sponsoring a one day therapy dog reading program with Connor and Pax and their handlers who are graduates of the Dog B.O.N.E.S. Therapy Dogs of Massachusetts program. The dogs will listen to children in Grades 1-5 read. Come with your favorite book or choose one from the Children's Room. Call to set up your 15 minute appointment and be sure to bring your camera! This is a wonderful opportunity for struggling and/or reluctant readers to rehearse their reading skills with a non-judgmental listener. The program will take place from 9:30 am to 11:30 am on Saturday, December 12. Registration begins Monday, December 7; space is limited. To register call Jane Malmberg: 617-796-1370. More info: http://www.therapydog.info/.

It was 1997 when Elisa New held her great-grandfather Jacob Levy’s cane for the first time. Something about its elegant, finely crafted design led her to realize that her family’s story was not the standard coming-to-America tale she had long assumed. Inspired to search beyond what her parents and aunts had revealed of her family’s past, she and her daughter Yael traveled from the suburban parlors of Baltimore, to Belgian battle fields of World War II and beyond, to trace their ancestors’ paths. The resulting book, Jacob’s Cane: A Jewish Family’s Journey from the Four Lands of Lithuania to the Ports of London and Baltimore – A Memoir in Five Generations details the discovery of the alternative immigrant experience of their relatives. Elisa New will speak on Monday, December 14 at 7:30 pm. The talk will be followed by a book signing with books provided by New England Mobile Book Fair.

The tale, one of a line of Jews rendered worldly by centuries of transoceanic commerce, revealed that Jacob Levy had landed in Baltimore, not at Ellis Island, and skipping the struggling, tenement-living immigrant experience, had become a successful businessman and prominent socialist leader. Yet challenges to family cohesion and prosperity plagued him and through her research New found answers to questions long unanswered such as: Why did her family leave Lithuania? Why had they always claimed Austrian identities, denying their Eastern European background? And how did her great grandfather Jacob Levy come to curse his own sons? Jacob’s Cane is more than the tale of one family’s mysteries unlocked; it is a deeply ambitious book that captures the rich texture of life in Lithuania, London, and America over the past century and a half, as post-Enlightenment Jewish civilization was spread around the world.

Elisa New is professor of English and American literature and language at Harvard University. She is the author of The Line’s Eye and The Regenerate Lyric.

How did history drive an American-born youth to volunteer in the Soviet Red Army? How did that youth endure the gut-wrenching horror of the battlefield? How was it that after being seriously wounded he woke in a field hospital gazing into the eyes of determined young woman who would nurse him back from near death, ultimately becoming his first fervent love?

In an intriguing true-life tale, Nicholas Burlak traces the story of his early childhood days in Pennsylvania, through his family’s move to the Ukraine during the depression era, to volunteering in the Soviet Red Army as a 17 year old during World War II, and how in the midst of the war real love found him. Join him for an author talk on Tuesday, December 15 at 7:30 pm when he will speak on his latest book, Love and War, offering an unforgettable journey to a nearly forgotten time and place.

After Word War II during which he was wounded four times and shell-shocked twice, Nicholas Burlak completed his higher education in Germany and the Ukraine. He became a dramatist and musical director producing variety shows which were staged throughout the USSR and Latin America. Now a resident of the US, he continues to write and appears publicly performing his non-fiction stories for American audiences.

The library will be holding a free monthly class called, Applying for a Job Online. What are scannable resumes, job banks, keywords and guerilla job search tactics? This class will help job seekers as they navigate the online job search environment. In addition to learning about online job search vocabulary, participants will learn about the wealth of online and print resources available to guide them through the job search process. Stop by the reference desk or call 617-796-1380 for the schedule or to sign-up for the class. Registration is required.