The Medical Humanities Program at Dalhousie medical school took a little licence with its artist-in-residence program when it engaged a poet to expose students to the human side of medicine.
When Toronto-based writer Glen Downie took up the 2-month position last fall, he had a recently published collection of medical poems in hand. Wishbone Dance contains more than 50 poems, many previously published, that draw largely on his observations and experiences from 11 years as a social worker at a hospital and cancer clinic in Vancouver.
"Working in a medical area is very intense," says Downie. "It's people in crisis, it's matters of life and death a lot of the time. It would be difficult for a writer to avoid stuff like that because it makes such a strong impression on you and affects you personally."
Learning how to process daily encounters with serious illness and death is one of the things medical humanities professor Dr. Jock Murray hoped students would gain from Downie's presence. "Poetry captures the essence of things," says Murray, who always intended the artist-in-residence program to be broad in scope. "It gives students a way of thinking about the tremendous events that they see in the lives of patients every day. Poetry isn't easy. It makes students stop and think." FIGURE
Downie's poems are sure to provide ample food for thought. Touching, insightful and usually sobering, many revisit events and routines in the lives of critically ill or dying patients, surviving family members, and hospital and clinic personnel.
For example, "Sudden Infant Death" portrays a doctor's grief and helplessness as he arrives in the ER with his unconscious baby. "The Book of the Dead" recalls Downie's response to the monthly cancer-clinic ritual of discarding dead patients' files, while "Living with Cancer" observes a patient's fears during his first support-group meeting.
Downie says committing such images and events to paper has allowed him to work through often trying professional experiences. "It is one way to retrieve what goes by too quickly, and have the time to mull it over," he adds. "Sometimes the pace of events in a hospital is very fast. You have to do what you do and get on to the next person."
Downie, who has published 3 other collections of poetry, doesn't limit his writing to medical topics, although he knows his medical poems have the widest appeal. During his stay at Dalhousie, he hoped they would help teach students the art of listening to patients.
"One of the things that is common to both the writing and reading of poetry and the practice of medicine is you have to attend very carefully to what's being said. There are so many conditions that doctors can't cure and can't alleviate totally that we have to at least be able to offer patients the respect and consideration of full attention."