{"id":75512,"date":"2021-05-07T04:55:14","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T18:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/?p=75512"},"modified":"2022-02-27T11:01:31","modified_gmt":"2022-02-27T00:01:31","slug":"a-healthy-dose-of-healing-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/news\/a-healthy-dose-of-healing-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"A healthy dose of healing poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>THERE\u2019S a growing connection between the studies of medicine and humanities allowing for creative projects driven by science like Bendigo doctor Michael Leach\u2019s poetry anthology <em>Chronicity<\/em> to exist.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt combines personal information, scientific fact, research, clinical encounters. I\u2019d describe it as non-fiction poetry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wrote this piece called <em>Longitudinal<\/em> about a long-term patient journey and saw a call out for poetry through the Medical Journal of Australia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI submitted my poem thinking \u2018oh I\u2019ll give it a crack, who knows?\u2019 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cso 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\u2019ve dedicated the book <em>Chronicity<\/em> to her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dr Leach has since achieved further success after his poem about his mother\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMum\u2019s always been a really wonderful writer and supported my poetry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Prize is a UK initiative but it\u2019s global so people worldwide can enter, so I was quite excited when mine was one that was commended.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dr Leach hopes his work could bring solace to members of the public who have also experienced challenge or loss in a medical setting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat 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\u2019re out in the practice with people with such diverse backgrounds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Chronicity<\/em> is available now at Dymocks and Dr Leach will join the Bendigo Writers Festival this Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THERE\u2019S a growing connection between the studies of medicine and humanities allowing for creative projects driven by science like Bendigo doctor Michael Leach\u2019s poetry anthology Chronicity to exist. \u201cIt combines personal information, scientific fact, research, clinical encounters. I\u2019d describe it as non-fiction poetry,\u201d he said. Dr Leach was inspired by his work in biostatistics and [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/news\/a-healthy-dose-of-healing-poetry\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":184,"featured_media":75513,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-75512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A healthy dose of healing poetry - Bendigo Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bendigotimes\/news\/a-healthy-dose-of-healing-poetry\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A healthy dose of healing poetry - Bendigo Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"THERE\u2019S a growing connection between the studies of medicine and humanities allowing for creative projects driven by science like Bendigo doctor Michael Leach\u2019s poetry anthology Chronicity to exist. \u201cIt combines personal information, scientific fact, research, clinical encounters. 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