‘Stethoscope’ – and other medical poems

If you’re looking for poetic material with medical themes, the pages of the journal Medical Humanities are a good place to begin. The publication regularly features medically inspired poems – turn for example to Volume 37, Issue 1, which features :

● ‘Stethoscope’ (by Anne K Merritt)

Here’s an extract :

“She has wandered with me

since my first days as a physician—

an unassuming extension of my ears,

gently slung about a tattered collar,

patiently transmitting rubs, rhonchi, rales,

as I struggled to decipher them.”

Many other poems are available to read in their entirety without charge – such as :

● ‘Eat more fatty fish’ (Adam Possner)

● ‘Arachnoid Mater’ (Adam A Dmytriw)

● ‘On Amyloid Protein’ (Danish Zaidi)

Others are for subscribers only, such as :

● ‘Cytotoxic Infusion’ (Adam A Dmytriw) and

● ‘Congenital Glaucoma’ (Richard M Ratzan)

Also see:

Stethoscopic investigations (part 1 of 3)

Stethoscopic investigations (part 2 of 3)

Stethoscopic investigations (part 3 of 3)