“Hyperesthetic Neuralgia” and “Crawly Skin”: Poetry and Empathy in Medicine

Campo discusses poetry and empathy in medicine. Empathy has been defined in many ways, perhaps most compellingly as the capacity "to feel oneself into the experience of another" as happens here when the titular "old doc" looks back and sees her own medicalized list of health problems, from "cervical myelopathy" to "C5-C6 hyperesthetic neuralgia" in the more humane terms of Connie's "bum neck" and Hector's "crawly skin." Thus empathy becomes an opportunity to reflect on medicine's shortcomings, expressed in the poem's inspiring hope that what they can share is transcendent.