How Doctors Use Poetry

While doctors are educated to focus primarily on medical science, some are beginning to expand their outlook and focus on something greater: language, in particular, poetry. While the Hippocratic Oath many physicians take requires them to "remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug", these words are all too rare in hospitals, doctors' offices, and outpatient clinics. In this article, medical student Danny W. Linggonegoro explores the breakthrough science that is finding that the power of words is sometimes more potent than the power of medicine. Read on to learn how poetry can boost mood, reduce pain, and help patients better connect with what it means to be human.

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