Poetry in medicine: a pedagogical tool to foster empathy among medical students and health care professionals

ABSTRACT

Throughout human history, poetry has enjoyed a coveted place at the high table among tools to communicate one's feelings. Now, poetry writing is considered a useful method to teach sophisticated affective skills like empathy. Empathy has been found to decrease in medical students as they progress through the medical school. SSeveral reviews and studies in past have revealed that empathy training, benefits medical students and health care professionals. In lines with this, poetry in medical education can help build empathy in budding medical students by promoting reflection and understanding in clinical practice. Also, poetry offers numerous other advantages like it strengthens intercommunication, encourages constructive interpretations of circumstances as well as fosters creativity among students. To ensure that the potential of this method is realized, the current article discusses and explores the role of poetry as a tool to teach, cultivate and enhance empathy among medical students and health care professionals.

KEYWORDS:

• Poetry
• empathy
• medical education

Acknowledgements

Dr. Upreet Dhaliwal, Former Director-Professor, Ophthalmology, University College of Medical Sciences & Guru Tej Bahadur Hospital, University of Delhi, India, Visiting Scholar, Institute for Medical Humanities, Galvenstone, Texas Medical Branch.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).