This poem is part of the Poems for doctors project. You can find out more about the project here.

This is the last poem of our first season of readings. A second series of doctors and medical students reading Poems for doctors is currently in preparation. Series 2 will be available online later in March.

Season 1 : poem 7

Prof David Crossman, Dean of Medicine at the University of St Andrews, and Chief Scientist for Scotland, reads Second Opinion by Douglas Dunn.

Second Opinion

Douglas Dunn

We went to Leeds for a second opinion.
After her name was called,
I waited among the apparently well
And those with bandaged eyes and dark spectacles.

A heavy mother shuffled with bad feet
And a stick, a pad over one eye,
Leaving her children warned in their seats.
The minutes went by like a winter.

They called me in. What moment worse
Than that young doctor trying to explain?
‘It’s large and growing.’ ‘What is?’ ‘Malignancy.’
‘Why there? She’s an artist!’

He shrugged and said, ‘Nobody knows.’
He warned me it might spread. ‘Spread?’
My body ached to suffer like her twin
And touch the cure with lips and healing sesames.

No image, no straw to support me – nothing
To hear or see. No leaves rustling in sunlight.
Only the mind sliding against events
And the antiseptic whiff of destiny.

Professional anxiety –
His hand on my shoulder
Showing me to the door, a scent of soap,
Medical fingers, and his wedding ring.

Rights: ‘Second Opinion’ from Elegies (Faber & Faber, 1985) by permission of the publisher

A moderated Facebook group hosts discussion for medics and others who would like to follow up on ideas arising from ‘Poems for Doctors’.

To ask to join, or add to the discussion if you are already a member, please visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/poemsfordoctors/

Poem for a Hospital Wall

Diana Hendry

Love has been loitering
down this corridor
has been seen
chatting up out-patients
spinning the wheels of wheelchairs
fluttering the pulse of the night nurse
appearing, disguised, as a bunch of grapes and a smile
hiding in dreams
handing out wings in orthopedics
adding a wee drappie
aphrodisiaccy
to every prescription.
No heart is ever by-passed by Love.

Love has been loitering down this corridor
is highly infectious
mind how you go. If you smile
you might catch it.

Rights: from Borderers (Peterloo Poets, 2001) Reproduced by permission of the author.

A moderated Facebook group hosts discussion for medics and others who would like to follow up on ideas arising from ‘Poems for Doctors’.

To ask to join, or add to the discussion if you are already a member, please visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/poemsfordoctors/

This poem is part of the Poems for doctors project. You can find out more about the project here.

Season 1 : poem 5

Deputy Head of the University of St Andrews School of Medicine Julie Struthers reads Nothing by Selima Hill

Nothing

Selima Hill

Because she is exhausted
and confused,

and doesn’t want to argue,
and can’t speak,

she dreams of nothing
for a thousand years,

or what the nurses cheerfully call
a week.

Rights: from Gloria: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2008), reproduced with permission of Bloodaxe Books
www.bloodaxebooks.com

A moderated Facebook group hosts discussion for medics and others who would like to follow up on ideas arising from ‘Poems for Doctors’.

To ask to join, or add to the discussion if you are already a member, please visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/poemsfordoctors/