Echoing Medicine in Poetry

The otherworldliness of health care, for those who tirelessly diagnose and treat illness in its hospitals’ labyrinthine wards, units, and imaging suites, can come to seem normal. Even the strangest or most alienating clinical occurrences can become unremarkable realities. Another blood draw, lumbar puncture, or even surgery can seem quotidian to clinicians, yet profoundly foreign or even frightening to patients. Although movies, TV shows, or individual experience offer glimpses into medicine’s m...