Alberta Physicians' Poetry and Prose
January 19, 2023
PFSP recognizes the importance of the emotional and social aspects of physicians’ lives in their overall wellness. We invite Alberta physicians in any career stage to send in their original poems/prose to be considered for publication in the PFSP Perspectives column in future issues of Alberta Doctors’ Digest.
How is poetry and prose beneficial to your mental health?
Anesthesiology Clinics 40 (2022) 359–372; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anclin.2022.01.009; anesthesiology.theclinics.com; 1932-2275/22. Published by Elsevier Inc.
Key points:
- Poetry and medicine have multiple complex connections because they both can address difficult human experiences.
- Anesthesiology, including the arc of patient care and attention to rhythms and precision, has much in common with the poem, including arcs of thought, rhythms, pauses and resonances.
- Increasingly, access to reading and writing poetry has been found to decrease stress, enable reflection, and improve well-being.
Stanford Medicine & the Muse's Laurel Braitman discusses the mental health benefits of storytelling for health care workers. Continue reading Scope 10k article. Published by Stanford Medicine, May 20, 2020.
Send us your original works
- Submissions (under 500 words please) can be emailed to pfsp@albertadoctors.org. Please put the phrase “poetry submission” in the subject field of the email.
- We will acknowledge receipt of your submission. If it is selected for publication, we will work with the editor of ADD to determine when it can be published.
- For further information or questions, please email pfsp@albertadoctors.org, and one of our team will get back to you.
Physician poetry submissions
An Ode to Healing - Neelam Mahil, MD, FRCPC
Sad and lost
Not feeling great
Is life worth living
It’s up for debate
Let me help you
Let me be of aid
I’II do my best
Each and every day
Pick up your pieces
One by one
Carry the burden
Until it’s done
Feels so heavy
Cause it takes its toll
Too much weight
Getting out of control
Drowning
Gasping
Sink or swim
Nightmares
Blank stares
Too many cares
Mirror, mirror
Does not lie
Ask yourself if not a healer, who am I
Sorry friend
Can’t do it no more
Wish you only the best
Grateful but need time to rest
One day, you wake
And time has passed
Clouds are gone
Sunshine at last
No longer trapped, now you’re flying
Tears of joy instead of crying
Hand in hand with ones in need
Peace once lost has returned, indeed
Her Internal World - Allison Jane Gonsalves, MD
Her internal world
Was all swirled
Into a cosmically coloured chaos
Of the grandest proportions
Her voice was lost
Amid all the rumblings
Of a mind gone astray
Of a mind gone away
But she, who was so sick
Came back real quick
So fast she surprised everyone
Including herself
Gone was the guide
Pulling her aside
Yes, gone was the navigator
She was on her own once again
Forever is an eternity
And an eternity of respite was too much to ask
So she prayed for strength of will
To down all the pills
She asked to accept the consequences
Of chemical modification
Asking that someday in heaven or hell
She'd be left alone with her mind naturally quelled
Because suffering must not last a lifetime
She hoped that life didn’t work that way
At least that's what she implored
As she sat screaming on the ward’s cold floor
Never to have roamed this wild beautiful earth
Never to have been blessed with the presence of normalcy
She wished for a dreamless sleep
She wished for a world with a compassionate saviour’s keep
Into the Unknown - Véronique Dorais Ram, BA, MA, PHD, MD, CCFP
A month ago
Elsa awakened elemental spirits.
I watched with my daughters
on the big screen.
Snuggled close. Scooched in.
No hands washed. No sanitizer. Snacking on popcorn,
licking butter off fingers,
sharing water bottles,
savouring sour cherries.
Today, Into the Unknown
plays as I drive to work,
like an anthem calling me;
an echo off houses that shudder
with silence.
A blue mask, gloves and yellow gown,
passengers to my stethoscope.
As spring awakens
the playgrounds are wrapped
in a yellow bow
not a gift, but barriers.
Eliot did say April is the cruelest month,
mixing memory and desire.
The thought of children laughing,
the wish to see them playing.
The bright sun rises over hoodoos
as it did once for dinosaurs,
now extinct.
A sun that sparks
fears of crowds
who don’t believe
this is happening.
Human beings forget
how bodies are fallible
until disease stops the
easy rhythm of doing things
over and over and
over again.
Bring on Elsa’s winter.
Snowstorms now
welcomed weather,
the whited hills cleaner,
the river stiff with ice.
Delaying travel, shutting friends out,
a forced pause in time
stopping the spread.
Because this isn’t a Disney movie.
Nobody will ride a mythical
water spirit or shield our town
from an inevitable threat.
The cough will come and ring
until they stop breathing.
When faced with the unknown,
we will don our masks, if we have some.
Put on our gloves, if they can be found.
Change into gowns, if they aren’t gone.
And ignore the voice yelling
hope is gone.
We’ll rise and quite simply
do the next right thing.
Then one day
we’ll reconvene and recollect,
how something intangible,
something so small
became so big, and ensured that
life would never be
quite the same
ever
again.
Oath - Hollis Roth MD, CCFP (PC)
The following poem, Oath, is of the genre “found poems”.
Found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems.
The poem Oath is Dr. Roth’s original writing using the Hippocratic Oath.
I hold an oath
swear to impart
carry out
my art
and livelihood
I need
and want
to do no harm
injustice is
poison
will my ability
to
administer judgement
benefit patients
or fee regimens?
I will not harm
we break bodies
what should
be holy
witnesses to
keep
pure
I enter
indenture
outside what
my family
will ever
hear published
I hold
the knife
and stone
teach my art
abstain
not abusing
what should not be
my life
my art
opposite men
Not billable - Hollis Roth MD, CCFP (PC)
Shop talk done
smooth back the hospital sheet
add a warm blanket
tuck your feet in
add another
gather water
no ice
for the side table
we amble through the photos
on your phone
lambing season
at the family farm
your great-granddaughter
beaming
in her red rubber boots
fifteen minutes overtime
and yet
the highlight
of my day
tinnitus - Ted Jablonski, MD CCFP FCFP
there are days
when the mosquito buzz saw
vibrating through my head
sounds better
than the perpetual drone
of the worried well
that fumble and fidget
in front of me
caught
lean in
eye contact
mute
furrowed brow
head nod
reassurance
deception
a safe
monotonous
consistent
isolated
place
tinnitus
a wall of
unrelenting
noise
I can no longer
climb over
the parasite as hero - Ted Jablonski, MD CCFP FCFP
I work hard
keep the balance of want and need
to remain alive
comfortable
safe
clinging to the back of a chronic malady that has stripped the body
and mind of its host
my host
who painfully withers away
death means moving on
change that I would rather not have
at this moment
gluttonous
my being has
danced, sung, chased fantasies
visions of grandeur
built a kingdom for my progeny
who flourish
bear fruit
heroic or
opportunistic altruism
symbiotic
or parasitic
the seduction of concession
satiated
I sleep well
dream
often
The trouble with death - Jim Malmberg, Retired Psychiatrist
The trouble with death is the mystery
The trouble with death is love’s letting go
Photographs and history
All that’s left
and that’s all we know
The trouble with death is unforgiving
The trouble with death is that chances slip by
Such a short time that we’re living
We barely have time
to wonder why
Holding your hand
Touching your hair
To see your face and feel your breath
One more chance to clear the air…
The trouble with death is it comes so sudden
The trouble with death is the waiting game
Try to change it when it’s coming
It chooses the time
just the same
The trouble with death is the leaving
The trouble with death is a whole lot of pain
The people who stay to do the grieving
Wishing and praying
they’ll see you again
