A healthy dose of healing poetry

THERE’S a growing connection between the studies of medicine and humanities allowing for creative projects driven by science like Bendigo doctor Michael Leach’s poetry anthology Chronicity to exist.

“It combines personal information, scientific fact, research, clinical encounters. I’d describe it as non-fiction poetry,” he said.

Dr Leach was inspired by his work in biostatistics and pharmacoepidemiology, or the study related to the population level use of medication, to look beyond the statistics and data in 2015.

“That took me away from the patients a bit when I was doing these studies mainly using data on computers and I started writing reflective poetry thinking about the people behind the data and the actual people who are in the clinical encounters,” he said.

“I wrote this piece called Longitudinal about a long-term patient journey and saw a call out for poetry through the Medical Journal of Australia.

“I submitted my poem thinking ‘oh I’ll give it a crack, who knows?’ and then I was quite surprised when it was accepted and the editor got in touch with me and encouraged me to keep writing, keep submitting elsewhere.

“so I did and gradually have written about healthcare experiences of patients, my own experiences, experiences of family members and others including my mother who passed away last year following medical problems and I’ve dedicated the book Chronicity to her.”

Dr Leach has since achieved further success after his poem about his mother’s experience in intensive care before her sudden passing was commended in the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry, to be featured in an anthology of winning works released soon.

“Mum’s always been a really wonderful writer and supported my poetry,” he said.

“The Prize is a UK initiative but it’s global so people worldwide can enter, so I was quite excited when mine was one that was commended.”

Dr Leach hopes his work could bring solace to members of the public who have also experienced challenge or loss in a medical setting.

“It’s something new for the general public I would say thinking about medical matters in a less clinical, scientific way and in a more humanistic, holistic way,” he said.

He also said the wider field of medical humanities could help future health professionals develop a deeper connection with patients and said his poetry workshops as part of his role as senior lecturer in education and research at Monash University School of Rural Health aims to foster this.

“It’s a way for them to reflect on their own experiences, perhaps confront some of their own biases and ways of seeing patients and a way to potentially develop empathy, and maybe wellbeing for them because it can be an outlet and a way to process difficult situations,” he said.

“I think it might be new for a lot of students and health practitioners too, who are trained in this very highly scientific and medicalised model within their degrees, without usually any scope for electives or breadth subjects in the humanities that could compliment that science.

“That could give them an opportunity for reflection, opportunity to develop perhaps a better understanding of the complexity and uncertainty that comes in the real world once they’re out in the practice with people with such diverse backgrounds.”

Chronicity is available now at Dymocks and Dr Leach will join the Bendigo Writers Festival this Saturday.