Healing allusions? The use of poetry in teaching medicine

Abstract

This paper aims to encourage medical teachers who have never thought of using poetry in their teaching to do so. The increasing profile of poetry in medical teaching is outlined, and the many advantages of poetry as a teaching medium in medicine are discussed using multiple examples from teaching materials used by the author. Some of the potential pitfalls of poetry use are also explained and discussed. A brief outline of some of the basic elements of the analysis of poetry is then given and Helen Dunmore’s The Surgeon Husband is used to illustrate their use and show how the poem can raise questions for group discussion. Finally, the themes of death and bereavement and then mental illness are explored with a variety of poems, with examples of clinical and ethical questions for discussion arising from them.