In a previously published Musings blog entry, A plea for poetry in medical practice, I wrote:
Poetry (as well as good literature) is capable of stimulating the development of empathy in the reader—in this case, the clinician—and serves to enable him or her to approach the patient with an element of understanding and compassion. Such an approach undergirds the delivery of quality medical care.
In that piece I advocated for the inclusion of poetry in the medical curriculum to cultivate empathy on the part of clinicians toward their patients:
“It isn't that clinicians are totally thoughtless people,” I opined. “In many instances they just never learned to appreciate what it might be like to stand in the patient's shoes.”
On the heels of these words how heartened I was to peruse Dr. Pauline Chen's recent New York Times column The Doctor as Poet, for here Dr. Chen expresses the same sentiment.
Dr. Chen describes a poetry contest organized last spring by Dr. John Martin, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at University College London and a published poet himself. Students from Yale University School of Medicine and University College London Medical School were invited to submit original works of poetry for the contest. First prize (provided by an anonymous donor) was $1,500. You can read the top three selections here.
Dr. Chen quotes Dr. Thomas Duffy, director of the program for Humanities in Medicine at Yale Medical School, as an advocate for poetry in the medical school curriculum: “Poetry opens our minds to asking patients the right questions, while helping us address the emotional demands of doctoring, especially in the formative years.”
Dr. Rafael Campo, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an award-winning poet, echoes Dr. Duffy's sentiments: “Poetry does a better job in teaching because it is about embracing the human aspect of suffering, not just knowing how many lymph nodes are positive and where the pain is on a 1-to-10 scale.”
Thanks to the magic of cyberspace, I have learned that Alan Bedashi, a PA educator, has been incorporating poetry into his classroom curriculum for years to teach his PA students ethics, morality and empathy. Mr. Bedashi also tells his students that within each of them there is a poem waiting to be written.
Perhaps JAAPA might consider sponsoring a contest similar to Yale/University College London for original submissions of poetry crafted by PAs and PA students.
Such a contest might prefigure a new chapter in PA education—complete with verse.
Brian Maurer practices pediatrics at Enfield Pediatric Associates, Enfield, Connecticut. He is the author of Patients Are a Virtue and blogs at http://briantmaurer.wordpress.com/. This blog post expresses his personal views and does not express or represent the views or policies of AAPA.