The physician as poet | The Health Culture

Each issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association includes a poem, usually written by a physician. I found this one, by Laurie Rosenblatt, MD, especially moving.

There is harm

because there is this innocent animal,
the body;

because a baby’s unguarded gaze,
and the open regard
of animals both hold patience
with the world,
with mineral fact. Impenetrable

consciousness
arising from, locked into flesh. So

the body’s harm

astonishes,
for instance when met in the eyes
of the squirrel, run over, still
alive
beside the road,

eyes near bursting
meeting your own
and holding
something—

a plea?
Because there is
absence

of words, no telling
what is wanted, what
will help:
the question, “What is right to do?”

if anything,

and a need
to be
out from under this

responsibility,
my god, such need.

Laurie Rosenblatt is a practicing physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Her poems have appeared in Fulcrum, The Bellevue Literary Review, Salamander, Per Contra, and the Harvard Review. A brief biography at the Journal of Palliative Medicine states: “She has a great deal of insight into the problems of patients with advanced disease and their families, gained both from personal and professional experience. Her father died in 2002, and in 2004 her brother died of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). She is a psychiatrist who works with patients with cancer and their bereaved loved ones ….”

More of Laurie Rosenblatt’s poetry is available online at Per Contra, ditch, and Nicholas Kristof’s Iraq War Poetry Contest.

You can find more poems by physicians in the JAMA anthology Uncharted Lines: Poems from the Journal of the American Medical Association. There are also two poetry anthologies published by the University of Iowa Press: Blood and Bone: Poems by Physicians and Primary Care: More Poems by Physicians.

I originally asked Dr. Rosenblatt for permission to reproduce her poem here and learned that the copyright belongs to JAMA. Since the complete poem is available online, I hope my reproduction here falls under fair use.

Resources:

Photo source: News Hugs

Laurie Rosenblatt, MD, “There is harm,” The Journal of the American Medical Association, August 5, 2009, Vol. 302 No. 5, p. 470