January 22,
2007
New poetry anthology reveals human side of
being a doctor
Whether it’s suturing a patient or
delivering devastating news to a loved one—for every medical
student, there’s always a first time. A new poetry anthology
featuring works by students and doctors, including several from
Rochester, offers a glimpse into the emotional journey of becoming
a physician and the personal moments of self-doubt, humor, remorse,
and joy that come with the territory.
Body Language: Poems of the Medical
Training Experience chronicles the
M.D. experience, from medical school to residency to retirement.
The book was the brain child of Neeta Jain ’04M, a third-year
resident in internal medicine at California Pacific Medical
Center in San Francisco, and Dagan Coppock, a graduate of Yale
School of Medicine and currently a medical resident at Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. The two met while
attending a writing and medicine workshop in California, where
they connected with others who use writing to reflect on their role
as caregivers.
“I was struck by the richness and quality
of the material and realized how powerful a compilation of many
voices, in the direct, concise, playful language of poetry, could
be,” says Jain.
Jain and Coppock approached Stephanie Brown
Clark, assistant professor in the division of medical humanities, with the idea of compiling an
anthology that would speak to the difficulty in striking a balance
between detachment and connection, between care and compassion.
“I thought the concept was impressive and
very unique,” says Brown Clark, who agreed to volunteer her
time as advisor and supervising editor.
The three began soliciting poetry from students
and clinicians at medical schools in the United States and in
Canada, and spent months editing down those submissions into a
collection that they hoped would resonate with doctors as well as
patients.
The result, says Brown Clark, is a book that
“offers a window into the world of doctoring and really
captures the sense of wonder and the sense of privilege many feel
working with patients. The poems are very personal, very human
reflections on the art of medicine.”
Among those reflections are works by several
Rochester alumni, students, and doctors, including Frank Edwards
’79M (MD), a clinical assistant professor in emergency
medicine. In his poem “Heal Me, Doctor” he writes:
“Five feet away / we hear her failing heart / balloon the
skin between her ribs / where the breast is missing.”
Only a month off the presses, Body Language is
receiving notable attention from some unlikely audiences such as
Garrison Keillor, of Lake Wobegon fame,who recently read several selections on his
nationally syndicated show The
Writer’s Almanac.
Peter Conners, a marketing director for BOA
Editions, a nonprofit press in Rochester that specializes in poetry
and that published the book, says the anthology is getting positive
reactions from both the poetry and medical communities.
“Body Language gives doctors the
opportunity to speak to each other in the unique language of poetry
about the elating and harrowing situations that they face. It also
gives patients the opportunity to peek behind the white
coat,” notes Conners.
Creative expression can be a cathartic way for
doctors to reflect on how they can better care for their patients,
says Brown Clark. Medical humanities programs like
Rochester’s, one of the largest and longest existing in the
country, offer students the chance to explore issues and practices
in medicine using perspectives from the humanities. Seminars in
topics such as philosophy, literature, fine arts, ethics, and
history as well as workshops on writing, she says, provide a
broader context for understanding medicine’s role in society
and help students learn how to apply humane and thoughtful care to
their patients.
Coppock agrees. He says medical training
programs that incorporate the humanities may in many ways yield
more prepared and more effective doctors.
“The humanities in medicine not only leads to
doctors that are better equipped to connect with their patients, it
also leads to healthier doctors. When they put pen to paper, the poets
of Body Language were not just writing. They were healing themselves. The
process of contemplating and working through those difficult moments as healers was critical for
them.”
There will be a reception and reading of
selected poems from Body Language at the Rochester Academy of Medicine, 1441 East
Avenue, on Sunday, January 28, from 2 to 4 p.m. The event is free
and open to the public.
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