“I wuz here”: Training the Eye in Poetry and Medicine

Many medical schools offer courses designed to “train the eye,” bringing students and physicians into museums to look carefully at art. Just as for decades images of artworks graced the covers of JAMA, reminding us medicine is an art while stimulating our visual imaginations, such courses invite us to describe accurately what we see. The implications for physicians, from dermatologists who must recognize rashes based on appearance to radiologists who must discern patterns on imaging to make diagnoses, are perhaps more obvious than the subtleties of perspective and composition. The same kind of close attention is characteristic of poetry, as the poem “Joanne” vividly demonstrates: the keenly observed details are striking and reveal more than mere depictions of objects and people. The comparison between the pink gown the speaker is given to wear in the mammography suite and the sunset enveloping Joanne is not just lovingly rendered, but also evokes the vulnerability and need for comfort undergoing evaluation of a breast lump engenders. The recurring colors of pinks and reds suggest not just searching for warmth and reassurance, but also returning for repeated surveillance. The speaker scrawling “I wuz here” on a childhood chalkboard is at once startlingly clear-eyed, but also reminds us how, when we identify with patients, we ourselves may feel as exposed and helpless as children. Ultimately, it is not just opening our eyes to see what is before us that encounters with art and poetry teach, but also that the very act of close observation sparks empathy.