Stressed out medical professional trainees/students? There's a quiet poetic (R)evolution in the air

For five  earlier articles depicting how the medical arts have devolved, scroll through my blogs beginning with the seminal one entitled Crises in the Medical Arts: Returning Medicine to Patient Centered Care Giving.

The links between the healing arts and poetry are well known.

The Statute of Apollo Outside the National Academy of Athens

Apollo was recognized as the god of healing, poetry, music, truth,

the sun and light and much more  

 For instance,  poets including  John Keats, William Carlos Williams and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.  all received medical education.

The composition, recitation and listening to verse is known to release pent up feelings of angst, sadness, sorrow and depression--making it much easier to deal with these stressful feelings. (this subject to be explored in a forthcoming article)

Perhaps one  of the most calming and stress- relieving poems  is Psalm 23 which begins with:
"The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want."

The verse soothes all those who are  stressed through life's  travails  with its lovely images such as  being lead beside still waters and being guided on the right paths,  though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. 

So it comes as no surprise that poetry would be a tonic for the  proverbially overworked medical trainee.

Kudos to the pioneering steps of St. Andrews Medical School (founded in 1413) that acknowledges the healing benefits of poetry and the practice of humanistic medicine.

Tools of the Trade is a pocket size 

book of collected poems for doctors, It is

small enough to pull out and read when needed

photo from the Scottish Poetry Library.

Each year, each of the circa 900 Scottish medical school graduates receives "Tools of the Trade: Poems for new Doctors."  It's a small volume, less than 100 pages--thus easily potable.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, "the poems are grouped into five themes designed to help young physicians: looking after yourself, looking after others, beginnings,  being with illness and endings."

May this project, though in its infancy, continue to blossom and spread the seeds of empathetic humanistic medicine.

204 year-old New Hampshire Country Store is Rescued

Francestown, New Hampshire Village Store

photo courtesy of the Monadnock Ledger Transcript 

Francestown, New Hampshire (pop. 1600) has a new hero.

He is Nevada resident William "Bill" Smith (along with his three daughters). 

After Bill read an article in the Wall Street Journal that the 204 year-old building was going to be sold at auction, he called the Town Administrator  and arranged a deal to pay off the mortgage and back taxes.

The store will be renamed the The Three Sisters Building in honor of his three daughters who attended the welcoming event in Bill's honor at the recently refurbished Francestown Town Hall. 

Image courtesy of The Francestown News

Kudos to the FIHS (Francestown Improvement and Historical Society) which has been organizing a series of events to raise funds for the interior renovation: BBQ's, potluck dinners and 5K races.
 

I wish to thank Rose and John Perry owners of the Inn at Crotched Mountain. They have been running ads in the Francestown News and I happened to pick up a copy at their inn.

The May, 2018 issue caught my attention with the front page bi-line Mr. Smith Comes to Francestown. (It was an obvious reference to the 1939 movie starring James Stewart as an idealistic freshman US senator.)

Hallelujah Mr. Smith.

What ever Happened to the Bedside Manner: New Directions to Empathetic Medicine

Just the other day, I chatted with an executive here in Connecticut about the near lack of patient centered medicine.

She couldn't have agreed any more with my sentiments.

Immediately, she alluded to a physician friend who teaches resident physicians at Yale New Haven Hospital.

What is novel in the latter's approach is this:  she accurately diagnosed a crying need.

She discovered what was lacking in her students as they interviewed patients on their diurnal rounds.

She found that students were solely focused on the specific ailment/condition confronting them, be it cardiac, neurological or pulmonary related.

All the while, they perfunctorily observed and tested only the malfunctioning system with little or no curiosity about the state of mind of their subjects. 

There was little or no attempt to make conversation. 

(What ever happened to the traditional bedside manner when the physician prided himself in connecting with his patient? Asking questions and listening carefully to responses)

And so she told them they were only getting a limited picture of their patient--kind -of- like taking a close-up facial selfie while ignoring the rest of the whole picture: chest, hands, arms legs,etc. 

So, she is now training her students to smile, look the patient in the  eyes and take time to establish a relationship  with the suffering patient through empathy to set the patient at ease. 

 She is thus  training her charges to to observe, to test and to diagnose the entire patient.

My next articles in this series will further explore what medical schools are doing to address this very important issue of bringing back patient centered medicine.

Remembering Gerry Rhine 1938-2018

Yesterday, my friend Jerry Rhine was laid to rest.

Jerry was no ordinary friend. He was a special friend, who I got to know very well over the last 10 years.

As he spent the last two decades of his life battling numerous diseases, he turned to his creator to gain spiritual strength to fight back. And that he did nobly, with persistence, to the best of his ability.

He rarely spoke to me about his personal agonies , but he was a vocal advocate of the healing powers of visualization and positive thinking.

In 2014, Jerry published his book, Healing, about his personal experience.

Jerry, may your memory and your good deeds be a source of inspiration to all.