Postnatal Depression
Powerful image and poem describing the agonizing physical and emotional impact of a traumatic childbirth
The Empathetic Doctor
Composite figure questioning assumptions and identification from cultural/social/gendered/racial and ageist perspectives
It’s all in the genes
A family’s challenges around the acceptance and perceptions of their daughter living with Downs Syndrome
No one
A poetic processing of living with OCD
Face Value
Prose about a young medic feeling he had connected with a patient yet finding her case-notes revealed a very different story
Lady With Pink Hair
Young mother tragically contracting severe neurological condition during clinical treatment and deteriorating rapidly
Beyond Appearances
A student’s observation of a surgeon establishing clinical boundaries
How Can I Ever Forgive Myself?
Prose about a patient’s unbearable grief and guilt and a doctor’s support
Practise What You Preach
The hypocrisy of an authoritarian doctor with life-style issues lecturing on well-being
Real Symptoms
A challenging consultation with a dissatisfied, distraught patient
Helping Hands
Institutionalization and learned helplessness in hospital
Waking
Poignant narrative about a wife waking up next to frail and incapacitated husband
U.B.H.T Lost Property
A hospital-gowned patient at hospital desk – seeking his identity
The Patient
A bleak experience visiting a hospitalized friend – the complexities of mental health care
Life?
Concern regarding holistic care – review of a cocktail of medications and patient’s well-being and happiness in general
Pants
Poem about ‘strange privileges’ of doctors from the banal to the poignant clinical episodes
Caterpillar to Butterfly
Thoughts on how medical education is a form of ‘metamorphosis’
David
Challenging patient in residential care and student’s sense of failure in everyday interactions
New Glasses
Tough recognition of a grandparent’s emotional abuse, and perspectives around death and dying
Chasing the Bismarck
A narrative inspired by a sailor-patient’s adventures: then creative writing in medicine under scrutiny
Pandora’s Box
Auto-immune disorder wreaks emotional havoc for both the clinician-patient and his family
I am Like an Onion
Meeting an elderly lady with depression – haunted by her horrific childhood experiences in wartime Germany
Tolerant Farmer
A stoic farmer reluctant to visit his G.P.
The Die Hard Smoker
An elderly smoker survives against the odds, defiant in his addiction to tobacco
Depression
A suicidal, depressed man confined at home
Why do I feel so guilty about this?
Medical student on a ward with a dying man – feeling unable to comfort him
The Caring Doctor
Black humour around a doctor’s cynical outlook
The Snowman
Doctor-snowman made in response to wishes of a terminally-ill patient on a home-visit
Targets
Humorous response to government guidelines in general practice
Christmas Decorations
Narrative based on an encounter with an elderly lady in hospital ward not wanting to return home to her isolated existence
My Mother: The Stranger
The poet accompanies his mother through acute clinical depression
Hearts Connect
‘Meeting’ the patient in an authentic way – in a memorable consultation
The Veil
The impossibility of cognitively coming to terms with news of a young baby’s imminent death
Bodies
A powerful poem around survival inspired by a prisoner of war in Burma who now finds himself dying from cancer as was the case for his recently and abruptly deceased wife
Waiting Rooms
The surgery waiting room – exploring the body language of vulnerability
Whole Person Care
A challenge to holism and creativity within medical education.
That ‘s not what my doctor in Caithness said…
A doctor and student visit a fiercely independent elderly lady surviving in chaotic living conditions
Make a Difference
An insight into social deprivation through a chance encounter with a local resident