Teaching Physicians Not to Be Afraid of Poetry

Rafael Campo; Mark Doty

doi:10.1001/jama.2018.13760

The Arts and Medicine

October 16, 2018

Teaching Physicians Not to Be Afraid of Poetry

Rafael Campo, MA, MD¹; Mark Doty²

Author Affiliations Article Information

¹Division of General Internal Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts
²Department of English, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey

JAMA. 2018;320(15):1520-1521. doi:10.1001/jama.2018.13760

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2 Comments for this article

September 27, 2018

Poetry and Medicine Are Sides of a Coin

Suzanne Edison, MA, MFA | Seattle Children's Hospital

I'm so glad JAMA published this piece. I have just finished a book of poems based on 28 interviews with patients, caretakers, researchers and doctors all around autoimmune diseases. We will be having open, public readings soon. I am also teaching a course at Hugo House in Seattle called The Words to Say It: Writing About Illness, Trauma and Healing and I strongly believe in the importance of telling our stories as a way of containing and rewriting our experiences. Rewiring our neural pathways as well, so we can think better and advocate for our selves and others.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: None Reported

September 27, 2018

Poetry For its Own Sake

David Katz, MD | University of California-Davis School of Medicine

I am very glad to see this reporting. Poetry is one of the ways that health care providers, whatever our training, can share with each other. This sharing is also a way to support each other in our difficult work. It is a way to build the trust that we each need by sharing with those in our professional support system. I have shared my poems with colleagues from time to time.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: None Reported

Teaching Physicians Not to Be Afraid of Poetry

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