TOPICS
COLUMNS
LISTINGS
HELP
PARTNER LINKS
|
|
Healing words
Physician poets -
Resources -
Poems -
Main story
Physician poets
Physicians aren't using poetry only to reach their patients. Some are accomplished poets themselves as well. Here, several respected physician-poets talk about the meaning of what they do.
"Poetry has made me a better physician. There are certain commonalties between doctoring and writing, and one of the most important is listening."
-- John Stone, MD, Emory University
"I'm a spiritual person and [writing poetry] is increasingly important to me in my work. When you work with thousands of children with cancer over 30-odd years - more than half of whom have died - you have to confront certain issues. Poetry has helped me make sense of things."
-- John Graham-Pole, MD, University of Florida, Gainesville
"Everything about being human is in poetry, from the rhythms of the heart to the complex responses to fear and desires and pondering our own mortality. Poetry speaks to all of that -- and in some ways a lot better than medicine does."
-- Rafael Campo, MD, Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center
Back to top.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Resources
- American Physicians Poetry Assn., West Hartford, Conn., (860) 523-1100.
- National Assn. for Poetry Therapy, Port Washington, N.Y. (516) 944-9791;
(http://www.poetrytherapy.org/).
- Blood and Bone: Poems by Physicians, Angela Belli and Jack Coulehan, eds., University of Iowa Press, 1998.
- On Doctoring: Stories, Poems, Essays, Richard Reynolds, MD, and John Stone, MD, eds., Simon & Schuster, 1991.
- Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making, John Fox, Tarcher/Putnam Books, 1997.
- Uncharted Lines: Poems from the Journal of the American Medical Association, Charlene Breedlove, ed., Boaz Publishing Co., 1998; to purchase ($20), call AMA customer service, (800) 621-8335.
Back to top.
Poems
From Poetic Medicine
Heart of water
When I was a baby my heart
was a tiny fish swimming
in a gargantuan sea of things to come.
When I was a toddler my heart
was a trout in a large lake of
thoughts and feeling.
Now my heart is becoming
a salmon ready to go to sea
of the troubles I will have to face.
When I am old my heart
will be a whale swimming
in a sea of memories.
When I die God will become
a whaler.
-- Orion Misciagna, 11 years old
Radiology Report
Routine
medio
lateral o-
blique and
cranio-
caudad
views were per-
formed. A suggestion of a
mass.
A suggestion of a
mass
in the lower right
breast corre-
sponds to the
palpable
lump. This
nonspecific
finding is most
likely be-
nign, however
ultrasound
demonstrates a
well-defined
echo a
well-defined
echo at
ap-
proximately
5 0'
clock.
-- Susanne Petermann
Cancer Ward --1990
The nurses' shadows run
along the hospital walls. They hurry
to us with a determined love,
these beings who can see death walking by yet
bring the aid of anti-nausea pills and inject shots
into our tubes. Yet up and down the hall,
the sound of gagging punctures their shadows
because even pills and shots
will not always stop our body's struggle to be free
of this medicine/poison.
In our rooms,
we watch the plastic tubes where
drops travel like slow rain
down and through the needle
to the open vein. No one
counts or watches for long --
we learned so soon
to consider the bags as almost empty,
to imagine our lives again
as something more than dream, our heads
as they once were with flowing hair.
Yet in this same hour,
we might be numb and out of our bodiesv
or in tears, or sound asleep, or even
gracefully swimming into a peace
which dwells inside the flame
of a prayer, a flaming prayer
which will ignite,
oh wonder of wonders,
our next breath!
-- Roberta de Kay
Back to top.
Copyright 1999 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
|
|
Featured stories
Physicians don’t have to remain silent if they feel a health plan is wrong.
Some see coverage of intensive cardiac rehab and weight-loss counseling as growing acknowledgment that traditional medicine has limits in tackling heart disease and obesity.
Managing medications is becoming more complicated due to the aging population, use of opioids for chronic pain and increased FDA drug safety messages.
By knowing what users say is good and bad about electronic health records, physicians in the market will have a better sense of what to look for.
Intensive efforts addressing problems that again and again send the same patients to the emergency department are showing promise.
Medical schools see growth in enrollment in extra degree programs as students seek an edge in what they believe will be a changing job environment.
« Prev
1
2
3
4
5
6
Next »
|
