Session: Health Humanities and Education Flash Session
Co-Constructing Illness Poems: How Do We Dismantle Narrative Authority to Honor Our Patients?
Friday, October 13, 2023
5:00 PM – 6:15 PM ET
Location: Waterview AB (Lobby Level)
Caring for and beholding patients comes with the responsibility of honoring their illness stories as they wish. Poetry offers “form,” the structure that mirrors the active listening and emotional space invaluable to fulfilling that responsibility. But for healthcare providers, the potential pitfall is that our storytelling may distract from a patient’s illness experience since it is we who ultimately hold narrative authority through word choice and imagery. Therefore, how can we acknowledge and reconstruct this authority to respect a patient and their story?
Using my own poetry about patients, I propose that one solution to dismantling our narrative authority begins with capitalizing on poetic “form” to (1) explore our experiential limitations and (2) improve reader accessibility without sacrificing our message. Whether to one patient or a greater audience, this novel consideration can refine how we bear witness to others’ illnesses.