By Dr Chris Nickson

By Kathleen Jamie from Frissure: Prose Poems and Artworks (2013)

By Glenn Colquhoun, Playing God: Poems about medicine (2002)

Don’t talk to me about facts and figures,
In a way that gives me medical jitters.

I understand evidence, really I do,
But you don’t make it easy, do you?

A bit less, please, jargonese,
And legalese, in PILs and SPCs*.

On paper so transparently thin,
It’s easily thrown into the bin.

Where’s the benefit information?
A risky business, this medication.

I don’t mean to poo poo your peer review,
It’s just… I don’t trust you.

Especially if you’re big pharma,
Face it: you’ve got bad karma.

Help us to talk to you,
We’ve much to offer, too.

Our words are woven,
With experiences, human.

Medical proof can only get better,
Working together, boxing clever.

Don’t talk to me, without my family,
They’re part of my thinking alchemy.

My brother, my sister, by blood or by water,
My mother, my lover, next door’s daughter.

That queue behind me?
I trust them, implicitly, even when we disagree.

And if I’m in a minority,
The queue is much much longer than three.

Don’t talk at me, speak to me,
Tell me a symptomatic story,

Alive with compassion and care,
Some science too, with creative flair,

One proven in life’s laboratory,
Not given to flights of fantasy.

“The plural of stories is culture”;
Testimonies lend us structure,

Narrative data to inform,
Metaphorical and evidential brainstorms.

Don’t tell me: drugs are the only medicine,
Fine fettle is more than a regular regimen.

A roof over my head, a warm comfy bed,
An honest job, that won’t make me sob.

Food in my bowl,
Food for my soul.

Perhaps most importantly?
My other humans in relation to me.

By Bella Starling

This isn’t really about patient pathways, or co-production, or reducing variation, or personalising care. It is something that occasionally lends me great joy, and I wish to share it. We have had poems in our waiting room for over ten years. To begin with, we had a bit of a push back. Many of the poems were on weighty issues, life and death, pain and survival, and I think they had been chosen to help share the troubled paths that some of our patients follow.

Now, PitWR has regular issues, often around seasonal themes. They share poems of great sweetness. There seems to be no agenda other than to make sitting in the waiting room a more enlightened and lovely experience. They’ve been chosen to promote well-being and a sense of calm. I suppose just that, in its own way, produces better consultations.

VIEW FROM THE HILL by Fiona Larkin

I could convince myself 
we drew the river's curve
right there, and wound
it across the water meadow
with a flourish of buttercups,
just for the pleasure
of clothing our story
in cow parsley and hawthorn,
and of letting May's green energy
propel us further upstream,
beyond the tidal surge,
past a trio of fruit trees
flawlessly blooming;
and I could be persuaded
that its braided promise 
flowed from honeyed limestone 
where two tributaries met.

This is bad enough
So please …

Don’t give me
gobbledegook.

Don’t give me
pages and dense pages
and
“this leaflet aims to explain … ”

Don’t give me
really dodgy photocopying
and
“DO NOT REMOVE
FOR REFERENCE ONLY.”

Don’t give me
“drafted in collaboration with
a multi-disciplinary stakeholder partnership
consultation
short-life project working group.”
I mean is this about
you guys
or me?

This is hard enough
So please:

Don’t leave me
oddly none the wiser or
listening till my eyes are
glazing over.

Don’t leave me
wondering what on earth that was about,
feeling like it’s rude to ask
or consenting to goodness knows what.

Don’t leave me
lost in another language
adrift in bad translation.

Don’t leave me
chucking it in the bin.

Don’t leave me
leaving in the state I’m in.

Don’t leave me
feeling even more clueless
than I did before any of this
happened.

This is tough enough
So please:

Make it relevant,
understandable –
or reasonably
readable
at least.

Why not put in
pictures
or sketches,
or something to
guide me through?

I mean how hard can it be
for the people
who are steeped in this stuff
to keep it up-to-date?

And you know what I’d appreciate?
A little time to take it in
a little time to show them at home
a little time to ask “What’s that?”
a little time to talk on the phone.

So give us
the clarity, right from the start
the contacts, there at the end.

Give us the info
you know we need to know.
Show us the facts,
some figures
And don’t forget our feelings.

Because this is bad
and hard
and tough enough
so please speak
like a human
make it better
not worse.

by Elspeth Murray

With thanks to Dr Duffy, who shared this with me and with whom I have done a practice exchange – I worked for her last week in the Peat Road Medical Practice, which was a great experience. I’ll blog more about this later.

By Tom Leonard, from Ghostie Men

efturryd geenuz iz speel
iboot whut wuz right
nwhut wuz rang
boot this nthat
nthi nix thing

a sayzti thi bloke
nwhut izzit yi caw
yir joab jimmy

am a liason co-ordinator
hi says oh good ah sayz
a liason co-ordinator

Just what this erria needs
whut way aw thi unimploymint 
inaw thi bevvyin
nthi boayz runnin amock
nthi hoossyz fawnty bits
nthi wummin n tranquilisers
it last thiv sent uz
a liason co-ordinator

sumdy wia digree
in fuck knows whut
getn peyd fur no known 
whut thi fuck ti day way it

I must add – the social interventions from this practice were nothing like this. It was joined up, aimed at getting the best from available resources, ensuring people got the best help from the right people.

I’m already thinking of going back…

Poetry as a way of seeing another perspective, in carefully chosen words.