Earthed Lightning: A Prescription for Poetry in Practice and Teaching

The author of this medical humanities article is a clinician-educator who finds himself relying more and more on poetry to make sense of the complexity, frustration, and wonder that attend the work of doctoring. Here, he posits that poems, in all their forms, are attempts at establishing order and meaning through meter, language, and sound, and that they may be particularly valuable for medical students and residents as they develop professional identities, habits of mind, and coping strategies. The author recalls that for Edward Hirsch, poetry is “a way of connecting—through the medium of language—more deeply with yourself even as you connect more deeply with others.” It is this purpose—to connect learners with themselves, their patients, and one another—that compels the author to read poems to teams of residents and medical students in lieu of traditional afternoon teaching rounds. In this article, the author artfully illustrates one such “Post-Call Poetry” session, quoting some of the poems he shares with learners. At the end of each 2-week rotation on the wards, few of the learners remark on the attending’s lessons on pathophysiology; however, nearly all of them, regardless of their background or career path, express appreciation for the poetry.