Narrative Matters: Poetry Meets Health Care

This month you might notice something a little different about the Narrative Matters section of Health Affairs. For October, instead of the personal stories about health care that readers typically find in the section, we’re featuring three thought-provoking poems about health and health care experiences.

The poems were submitted as part of our first-ever poetry contest, held earlier this year, which had an incredible response. Out of more than 500 poems submitted, we chose the three winning poems with the help of a panel of poet judges, Hakim Bellamy, Serena Fox, and Natalie Lyalin. With gorgeous illustrations from Brett Ryder accompanying each poem, we think this month’s issue is a keeper.

So why poetry? In the ongoing dialogue about health and the health care system, what can poetry achieve that story cannot?

One of our featured poets, Joy Jacobson, the poet-in-residence at the Center for Health, Media, and Policy at Hunter College, ponders the question on the center’s HealthCetera Blog. Of her own experience, she writes: “I am taking my poetry as spiritual medicine. … Poems can confer something rare in health care—or anywhere—a slice of sabbatical.”

Indeed, the enjoyment of poems requires a kind of listening that may be difficult in this day and age. Not skimming, but reflection and revisiting. It’s the kind of listening that is particularly challenging in the fast-paced environment of health systems, hospitals, and doctor’s offices.

‘In Every Encounter’

Rafael Campo, a physician and instructor at Harvard Medical School, uses poetry with medical students to teach them to be more empathetic – and, ultimately, better physicians.

“Poetry is in every encounter with my patients,” Campo said in a 2014 interview with PBS Newshour. “If we do anything when we’re with our patients, we’re really, I think, immersing ourselves in their stories, really hearing their voices in a profound way. And, certainly, that’s what a poem … does.”

Psychiatrist Richard Berlin entreats physicians to “remember that poetry is like treating patients, what Wallace Stevens called, ‘a response to the daily necessity of getting the world right.’”

In the emerging era of “slow medicine,” poetry may be an apt prescription. In March, Persea published the anthology, Poetry in Medicine, featuring diverse poems about medical experiences, showcasing “not only the breadth of poetry’s relationship to medicine, but also the genre’s unparalleled capacity to heal us.”

This month’s Narrative Matters poems, by Joy Jacobson, Deborah Fries, and Lisa Annelouise Rentz, touch on subjects as diverse as patient pathologies, an organ donor, and cancer treatment. You can also listen to the poets read their work as part of our series of podcasts.

A Full Month Of New Poems

We received so many wonderful submissions to the contest, and while we couldn’t publish them all in the journal, we’ll feature some of our other favorites on the blog throughout month. Look for new poems in this space each week.

from Health Affairs Blog http://ift.tt/1L8MQpu