The Monthly interviews Renee Liang and Loredana Podolska-Kint regarding poetry projects working with people in the medical field – Part 1 – Medicine and the Humanities

How did the idea about connecting poetry with people who work in the field of medicine come about?

Renee Liang

This is not completely unique or even a new idea. It is part of a very long tradition. I was a speaker at the Hippocrates Conference in the UK, way back in 2011, and that was an international conference dedicated to poetry and medicine.

If you go back historically, medicine and the humanities were linked, literature and medicine were one. Doctors really didn’t have a lot to work with given that the science of medicine was in its infancy, so the ‘art’ of medicine – narrative and poetry – was an important tool. As medicine developed things flipped, and so when I was going through my six years of medical school, in the late 90’s, the humanities wasn’t offered or emphasised as part of my training at all.

I think Loredana’s experience was quite different from mine.

Loredana Podolska-Kint

There is certainly more emphasis on medical poetry now, although I do think it could be taught or encouraged in a far better way. I was first introduced to medical poetry when I was a school student and I was reading poetry by Glenn Colquhoun, who is a well-known poet in New Zealand and also a GP. He has a number of poems available online and has a Youtube presence.

I met him recently which was wonderful and it also reminded me of my English teacher being very enamoured with his work.

In Medical School we were encouraged to reflect and be mindful, and to keep creative practices in our lives. We were also encouraged to introduce a little of the arts into our assignments, but I think it was enforced in a way which didn’t quite allow for genuine creativity to develop

If it is part of an assessment process then you run the risk of the vast majority of people approaching it in a far more robotic way rather than as part of developing the creative process. I think it would be far better if this was approached in an organic way, but regardless, it is interesting to hear that it wasn’t a part of Renee’s medical education where it was part of mine.