While there is a long history of doctor-poets ' one giant of mid-20th-century poetry, William Carlos Williams, was famously also a pediatrician ' few people seem to know this or understand the power of combining the humanities and medicine. As a published poet and scholar of the health humanities and ethics, I have a foot squarely planted in each field ' or perhaps more accurately, I stand in what I perceive as the overlapping field of healing and poetic practices. Literature has had a large role in helping me define the kind of physician I strive to be ' one who is not only empathetic and a good listener but also a fierce advocate for changing the sociopolitical forces that affect my patients' lives. I think literature can do this for other health care providers, too. Despite having physicians for parents ' or perhaps because of it ' initially I had no interest in medicine. It seemed too clinical, too sterile. The work stories my parents shared over the dinner table were...
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