Didactic Blocks Expressed as Poetry: Clinical Anatomy

For each issue of The Differential, our arts editor will write a piece in a specific poetic form that reflects the themes, material, pathologies, and/or student maturity/mindset during the block that she experienced the previous year. All of these are abstract. Some of these are very abstract! But have no fear if you are no poetry connoisseur—there will be a brief explanation of the poem and the poetic form if you so desire; just click on the “References” button below.

 

Post-Mortem/Post-Modern

Juliet’s mother remarked the young suitor Paris

was ‘writ with beauty’s pen’ –

a precious book

‘fair without and fair within’

his name alone,

an allusion to Priam’s

son.

 

You too have allusions:

your parts

composed of Latin roots for unremarkable things

and – occasionally – remarkable people.

But you are anonymous

to me

a synecdoche

I learned to read

dissecting your structures

like text:

scalpel replacing pen

probe replacing bookmark

‘anastomosis’ replacing ‘anadiplosis’

(they are the same thing anyway)

 

between you and me

all was too antithetical

then my eyes lit up

at the sight of your scar –

‘Me too,’ I thought.

Yet, the important details I will never know

even though

 

with nearly a century of life,

you’ve given me centuries of knowledge,

 

a heart I can hold

but no iambs to appreciate;

inspirations I shall realize

yet unable to auscultate;

nerves I will trace

without signals to propagate.

A tome I read –

A life I assimilate.

 

References

Explanation

Clinical anatomy was an incredibly surreal experience. Words cannot fully express it, so free verse is the most appropriate poetic form to use in representing this block. I always found solace and sublimity in the similarities between anatomy and literature as fields of study: both involve dissection of structures, Latin terminology, and the aim to learn about persons who exist in a separate realm. For this poem, I chose some specific literary elements that also reflect aspects of anatomy and physiology:

  • Synecdoche is a literary structure in which the part represents the whole; in the process of dissection, we are always studying the parts and connecting how the whole body functions.
  • Anadiplosis is the literary equivalent of anastomosis in my mind. It is a syntactical structure in which a word or phrase is repeated at the end of one sentence and at the beginning of the subsequent sentence, thereby connecting the two sentences with parallelism.
  • Iambs are a type of poetic feet (stress pattern) of unstressed-stressed, thereby sounding like the lub-dub of a heart beat. Iambic rhythm is generally the natural cadence of English speech, so I’ve always found it interesting that English speech mimics heartbeats.

To further reflect the parallels between the medical arts and humanities, I’ve used a few instances of double meanings throughout the poem (The fancy term for a pun is a zeugma). See if you can interpret lines in different ways.

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Aishan Shi is a fourth-year medical student and recent MBA grad from UA COM-Phoenix. She graduated in 2013 from The University of Arizona with bachelor’s degrees in biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology, and English. Her interests include medical humanities, structural biology, Shakespeare, stuff in the realm of postmodernism, and cartoons. She aims to bring all these interests together in medicine. To contact Aishan, please email her at ashi1[at]email.arizona.edu.