The art of medicine: Poetry, medicine, and the International Hippocrates Prize

From the physician who observes the distressed Lady Macbeth sleepwalking, to the doctors who turn to homicide in the pages of Agatha Christie, and television hospital settings from Emergency Ward 10 to ER and House MD, medicine and the medical profession have steadily emerged in the modern era as objects of profound fascination to writers, readers, and audiences. For the Hippocrates Prize, we wished to draw together national and international perspectives on three major historical and contemporary themes uniting the disciplines of poetry and medicine: medicine as inspiration for the writings of poets; effects of poetic creativity on the experience of illness by patients, their families, friends, and carers; and poetry as therapy.