Dedicated to frontline healthcare workers who faced unprecedented challenges in 2020, Why Doctors Write centers on the tremendous value of incorporating humanities endeavors in medical school and in medical practice. Several noteworthy humanities programs at Harvard Medical School; New York University—Bellevue Hospital; Columbia and Cornell University—Presbyterian Hospital; Stanford University, and other settings illustrate how incorporating poetry, the study of art and literature, and reflective writing can benefit medical staff who often move from patient to patient without pause, and for medical students about to deal with death and trauma for the first time.
During the pandemic crisis in New York City, Dr. Danielle Ofri, a physician at Bellevue Hospital, decided to call one of her long-time diabetes patients, only to find out she passed away from covid at another hospital. Dr. Ofri stated “that’s when it really hit me”. Author of Medicine in Translation: Journeys with my Patients and Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue, Dr. Ofri appreciates the importance of getting to know patients, asking patients what it’s like to have a certain disease, and writing their stories. Bellevue became the first hospital in 2001 to publish a literary review and now receives 4,000 submissions a year.
Dr. Rafael Campo took a year off from medical school at Harvard University to study and write poetry and completed The Other Man Was Me and other poems. Without stories, Dr. Campo feels patients can just be a list of problems and poetry especially helps focus on details to express what’s happening in a person’s life. In 2015 Harvard Medical School founded the Arts and Humanities Initiative and now medical schools across the country are seeing the value of arts education.
First seen in the film’s introduction in personal protective equipment, Dr. Audrey Shafer, anesthesiologist at Palo Alto VA Medical Center, Stanford School of Medicine, states she would never have imagined being described as an “essential worker”. Dr. Shafer tells how important she views her role is as the first and last person the patient sees before surgery, and, how imperative it is to personally relate to each individual at these critical times. Author of Sleep Talker: Poems by a Doctor/Mother, Dr. Shafer states a poetry course changed her life and she now teaches a class in the Medicine and the Muse program. Co-founder of Stanford Medical School’s Pegasus Physician Writers in 2009, Dr. Shafer states the group shares their creative writing, lends support and friendship to each other, and agree stories help with healing. In 2019 the Pegasus Review literary journal started to capture their writing.
At Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University, the Program in Narrative Medicine allows individuals to study art, music, and literature. At the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, Story Slam helps medical students use literature and writing to reflect on the human experience. With coverage of meaningful programs, the film is fitting for medical libraries. Recommended. Aud: C.