Almost a decade ago, Professor of Clinical Pharmacology Donald Singer teamed up with poet and translator Professor Michael Hulse to establish the international Hippocrates Prize for poetry on a medical subject. They have spent many years investigating relations between the two disciplines of poetry and medicine, and are joined by Dr. Rafael Campo, poet and physician at Harvard Medical School, to present thoughts about the healing and sensitizing influence of poetry in clinical and therapeutic contexts and in medical education and training. Donald and Michael have been working to identify a global corpus of poetry on medical subjects, and together with Rafael will explore the characteristics of medical poetry written by patients, by medical professionals, and by professional poets.Owen Lewis, a psychiatrist-poet based at Columbia, will also join the panel. This promises to be an illuminating and salutary encounter.
