Medical education needs literature. Here’s why.
The family medicine fellow set down her pen and inhaled deeply. “So when is it OK to cry with a patient?” she asked the senior attending across the table, a veteran internist in her mid-60s.
About a dozen of us — fellows, physicians, writers — sat hunched over a paper- and laptop-strewn table in the fellows’ shared office, talking about a poem: Sharon Olds’ “Death of Marilyn Monroe.” In it, Olds …
