Reflections on Writing Poetry for Coping and Connection

Listen to ASCO's Journal of Clinical Oncology poem, "Etch a Sketch" by Dr. Wendy Tong, an Internal Medicine Resident at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University. The poem is followed by an interview with Tong and host Dr. Lidia Schapira. Tong shares her thought process behind her fictional poem, where a mother and daughter receive bad news of a leukemia diagnoses.

TRANSCRIPT

Narrator: Etch a Sketch, by Wendy Tong, MD

You are only seventeen when you first learn its meaning.Just moments before, you sit in a white-walled roomwith your mother by your side. You have been losing weight.You have been feeling dizzy; you have been bedbound with colds.You have been waking up with the taste of blood,finding dried crimson on your pillowand tiny red freckles smattering your skin.

In the middle of the waiting your mind drifts backto when you were younger, when the thing you liked bestto play with was an etch a sketch. You would maneuver the knobsto draw lineographic pictures with an invisible stylus—a whole world of possibility pixelated into a gray two-dimensional screen.If you made a mistake, no matter. The image would blurwith a few simple shakes; if no one saw it, did it ever really exist?

When the doctor returns, you try to brace yourself but findyour defenses dissolving as he delivers the message. This is the moment you learn the meaning of tragedy. It is a fortune-telling, it is a sentence.Your mother's face pales. You simply stare at the hands in your lap—hands that have just learned to love. Hands that have fumbled to make art; hands that could not help but hold onto hope. A whole world of possibility suddenly goes dark. If only this screen could be shaken, this gritty image erased.

As you watch your mother's tears fall, you retreat to a safer placeinward, where you are free to sketch the image of the two of youat the kitchen table just that morning, before things changed.

In a single movement you pencil in the harsh slantof your own angled cheekbone. In another, you etch worry linesinto your mother's forehead for age to deepen.This is not the future that she dreamed for you.

But there are things you cannot capture with two-dimensional strokes.What of the way the sun had hit the glass saltshaker, or the slowing of light. The way refraction had scattered rainbow flecks across your mother's cheeks like celestial confetti, the grace of an unseen angel.The way the coffee was still warm against your lips. These are the things, you realize now, that will sustain you. You reach for her hand and she grasps back, tightly.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Hello, and welcome to JCO's Cancer stories: The Art of Oncology, which features essays and personal reflections from authors exploring their experience in the field of oncology. I'm your host, Dr. Lidia Schapira, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. Today we're joined by Dr. Wendy Tong, an Internal Medicine Resident at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University. In this episode, we will be discussing her Art of Oncology poem "Etch-A-Sketch."

At the time of this recording, our guest has no disclosures.

Wendy, welcome to our podcast, and thank you for joining us.

Dr. Wendy Tong: Thanks so much for having me today.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: So let's start by talking a little bit about your writing, you are going through your medical training, tell us what writing does for you.

Dr. Wendy Tong: I first started getting into writing poetry, or writing in general, about halfway through medical school. I was always inspired to write after a specific patient encounter, sort of as a way to capture something human that I had noticed about them - a specific detail, mannerism, or attitude - something that I wanted to appreciate and remember. When I started, poetry was a good way to capture those little glimpses separate from writing more narrative essays where you are able to get in more of the medical details, history, and the whole complex course. So, I've found solace in being able to reflect on experiences through both mediums. But I do find that it's a good way for me to process how patient encounters went or what a specific patient meant to me, and it's a way for me to remember them as well.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Let's talk a little bit more about poetry and how it allows you to get these glimpses or perhaps capture an emotion or a scene. Tell us a little bit more about that choice to tell a story, in this particular case, a moving scene, through poetry.

Dr. Wendy Tong: I can still remember the very first poem I attempted to write. It was in medical school, I was actually rotating on a palliative care elective. And this very sick cancer patient, she was a very thin and cachectic, but the first thing I noticed when we walked into her room was she had these amazing nails - glittery, long, and gold and they're beautiful. So that's something I noticed and I commented on, and she said it's what makes her feel human still and what still keeps her going, even though she was so sick. That detail stuck out in my mind, and after I left the room, I ended up typing up a little blurb about this detail I noticed on my phone. And that ended up becoming my first official poem I'd written about a patient, first poem in general, actually. When I'm able to be in the moment or in the present and notice and observe things, I think that's where the inspiration strikes so to speak. It's something human, it's some kind of connection that I like to reflect on and remember. So, I think that's what makes poetry so powerful and helpful in those ways. Sometimes I don't have a full story to tell, or I just want to capture one moment and how it made me feel. So I think poetry is really powerful in that way.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: You're making a very good case for narrative and medicine and that is all about observation and, sort of as you say, capturing it in whatever art form you use. So my question now is a little bit about that creative energy that seems to be flowing from you, that maybe starts in a moment of connection or in a moment when something just captures your imagination, and then you express it. Tell us a little bit about how you've incorporated that into your life as a physician, maybe starting as a medical student. I'm going to the "Why do this?" What does it do for you?

Dr. Wendy Tong: That's a great question. I'm an only child and grew up loving reading and being very into books. As a child, sometimes my parents would come in and be like, "Why is your light still on?" So I would block out the light from under my room because I'd be up all night reading. When I was young, I wanted to be a writer. At that time, it was just novels or whatnot, but I never really pursued it. So I would take a creative writing class here and there in college, but never found the subject material that made things click for me so to speak. And I remember in my gap year before applying to medical school, learning about the field of narrative medicine, which is still ever growing, and reading Atul Gawande's books, obviously, non fiction, but it opened up a whole new world for me, combining these two passions - writing and medicine. So I don't think the inspiration struck until having actual patient encounters. The first half of medical school was a lot of textbook learning and classroom. And it's not exactly inspiring.

It wasn't until my actual medicine rotation that having the human component and specific encounters were very inspiring so to speak. I think it's one patient for me who made me decide to go into internal medicine, and also later I realized is inspiring me to want to become a palliative care physician actually. And the first patient I started writing about is also the same patient who, in my third year of medical school and on a general medicine rotation, the first patient I'd grown very close to and who passed while I was helping take care of him. We are able, as medical students, to spend a lot more time with patients.

So I remember in the early mornings when it was still dark out, I'll go into his room while I was pre-rounding and chat with him. He would tell me about how tired he was. He was quite sick. He had neo pulmonary hypertension and high output heart failure, and all these things, he had a chest tube in. And each morning, he would get worse and worse. He would tell me how bothersome the beeping was and how much he hated needle sticks. It was like a harbinger of what was to come because it seemed like he knew what was going to happen. One morning, he asked me about physician-assisted suicide he asked things like, "Why me?" It was a very emotional time, and I still think about it today. That day, our team had gotten palliative involved. He had wanted his code status changed to DNR, and within 24 hours, he had passed away.

I remember when I found out, I burst into tears in the resident room, and I just kept thinking about this patient. And looking back, I think it was in those moments of connecting with him and his wife and family that– I'm not a religious person, but it almost feels like a spiritual or sacred feeling in the room sometimes when you're talking about life or death. Sometimes you just get this feeling, and I think that's the feeling that both makes me want to write and pursue palliative care.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: I think that's a very beautiful, sincere, and very authentic pitch for why it's really important to allow that space - the space of absorbing what just happened, sort of celebrate the connection, in your case, maybe even memorialize a patient. I wonder if you find that the medical culture and your attendings are supportive of this, or it's something you sort of push to the side and keep private.

Dr. Wendy Tong: Going back to that day when I burst into tears at that moment, some residents in the room, or my residents were very supportive of me and told me to take care of myself and go home for the rest of the afternoon. Another resident, I think I overheard saying, like, "I just wonder what had happened." Totally normal reactions. The next morning, what I really appreciated was my senior resident and our attending had let us have a moment of silence before we started rounds. So we all stayed in the room. We reflected a little bit about what the patient meant to us and how his clinical course had gone. We were able to share a moment of silence, which I found really impactful, and I was really appreciative of. That's something I've also noticed on my medicine rotations here or when we are in the ICU and having a lot of stuff happen, my team, and now I am a senior resident, but as an intern, my senior residents would be quite supportive. I just think those moments of silence are so simple to do and very quick to do, but they're really impactful and show that people are aware of how hard this job can be sometimes and that patients who we lose do deserve that moment of respect. Whenever that happens, I'm very grateful for it. It's something I hope I will do myself as a senior resident and in the future, to encourage everyone that it's okay to experience those emotions, and it's okay to pause and reflect. We don't always have to keep moving forward without pausing.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Wendy, I'm very impressed hearing you talk about how you process the emotional intensity of some of these connections. I wonder if you've shared your poetry or your writing with patients.

Dr. Wendy Tong: That's not something I've done before yet. Many of the poems I have written are about very sick patients. Oftentimes, it's patients I happen to meet while I am rotating on a palliative care elective. I think it says something. One, it's just being able to have the time and the space to notice and sit with people and have those moments of connection. And then to write them down and process it.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: What I'm hearing you say is that you're drawn to palliative medicine. I wonder if that's because in that specialty, we value being with patients and accompanying them. How does that sound to you?

Dr. Wendy Tong: That sounds totally right to me. I think so much of what brings a lot of us into medicine is we say we want to help people. We enjoy speaking with patients and making those connections. I will say, I have noticed that when I'm very busy, very burnt out, and tired, I don't have that spark in me or the motivation or inspiration per se to want to write or to create. So I think it says something that to be at our best and to be emotionally well and able to create, it's best if we are in a good mental space. But for me, when I think back about what drew me to medicine, it's those moments. And I do think palliative care as a specialty is one that intentionally fosters those moments and gives us a little bit more time to do so.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Wendy, can you help our readers and our listeners understand your poem a little bit more? For some people, reading poetry is like perhaps reading a foreign language. They're not as familiar. Tell us a little bit about this. Bring us to the bedside and what happened there.

Dr. Wendy Tong: Usually, the poems I write would be about specific patients that I've had and specific details about them. This is actually the first fictional poem that I've written in the sense that it's about breaking bad news, and it's written from an imagined perspective of a young leukemia patient hearing their diagnosis for the first time. As clinicians, we do have to break bad news to patients, not infrequently, though it's never easy. And, of course, it's a skill that I hope to work on for quite a while. At some point, I do think we become immune to the emotional heaviness of it, and we might forget or not fully realize what it means or what it truly feels like as the patient hearing bad news for the first time. Especially for younger patients, it's likely their first time hearing something that's often life-changing. So this poem is sort of a reminder, I think, for us as clinicians to try to stay mindful, empathetic, and considerate when delivering bad news, no matter how many patients we've seen that day or how tired or burnt out we are or whatnot. In this poem's case, we don't know exactly what the doctor said, but maybe they could have delivered it differently. And you can say there's a balance between beating around the bush and delivering the message, but there are also nuances in how you deliver it.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: And in this poem, Wendy, you also bring out the delicate balance between the mother and the patient at a very tender age. So tell us a little bit about that. It's more nuanced than just about breaking bad news. It's how the news lands on the mother and the child and how they're responding to each other. Where did that idea come from?

Dr. Wendy Tong: People are still living at home as teenagers, and sometimes parents are still taking them to doctor's appointments. And I think it's important, in general, for patients to have loved ones nearby as support when they're at important visits or hearing bad news. And in this case, I guess it's like a dual response. The patient is hearing the news, the mother, they're also watching their loved one hear the news, but they are also a little distant from it because I think the news is quite shocking. And so they kind of have to retreat a little bit inside. That's kind of what the last two stanzas are about. The lead-up is the patient kind of knows something is going on, but doesn't really know what it is. But actually hearing the words, the diagnosis, having that as a shock, and having those words change their imagination of how their future was supposed to go. So the last two stanzas are sort of a reflection, the patient going to their safe place and thinking about the things that hold them together, whether that is their relationship with their parents or their loved ones, and who are their supports. Small things about what I think makes life important to them or what makes life a good life to live.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Finding meaning, also, in the experience, in sort of crystallizing for themselves what their idea is of their own future, which has just been shattered probably by the news that was delivered. Does that sort of get it?

Dr. Wendy Tong: I think so. I think so. The poem doesn't go into prognosis or what life will look like. And oftentimes we know now, depending on your type of leukemia, your cancer, your course can look drastically different based on what treatments are out there. But this poem was just trying to get at that initial delivery of the news and how this patient processes it and reaching for the support she has to get her through it.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: So before we wrap up, I have two questions, and the first is very simple and may not have an answer yet. Does writing poetry make you a better doctor?

Dr. Wendy Tong: I would like to think so. I want to be in a space where I am thriving ideally. I know residency, with its ups and downs, may not always be that place, but I hope to have a career where I feel fulfilled. And part of that also means, of course, doing what I love to do. But that also involves being inspired to write and to create. There is something there for me that I know I'm in a good headspace when I want to create.

And the other piece of it, I do think writing poetry and writing, in general, just helps me pause and take things slower. And that act of thinking about what happened, writing, and editing makes me more appreciative. And it does help me remember patients more, I believe. It's like the act of metabolism itself is helpful, I do think. And I hope it would make me a better physician and more observant and more empathetic. That's my hope.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: And tell me, Wendy, we can write to reflect, to process, but then the decision to publish and share with people you don't know is a whole different step. What made you decide that you wanted to share this with the world?

Dr. Wendy Tong: When I was younger and trying to write things, whether it was short stories or fictional creative work, I was always too scared to show anyone. Writing feels quite vulnerable, and it's like the inner workings of my mind. Usually, I'm a private person and like to protect that. But for me, when I read good poetry, it's the simple language but it's something about the choice of words and their specific arrangement that makes me feel something. And when I feel a certain way after patient encounters, it makes me want to try to capture and metabolize and also share that feeling with people I don't even know per se. But I think for me, poetry is about conveying not just a message, but a feeling across- that feeling is one of the reasons I wanted to go into medicine, and I think it's going to be one of the feelings that will keep me going.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: And we sure hope it does keep you going. Thank you on behalf of our readers for sharing your work with us. It takes the reader to an emotional space, and I think that it's a gift that poets have for their readers because it allows the reader to project onto their own emotional space the feelings that they're having in response to your work. So thank you for that, and keep writing.

Until next time, thank you for listening to JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology. Don't forget to give us a rating or review, and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can find all of the ASCO shows at asco.org/podcast.

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Show Notes:

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Guest Bio:

Dr. Wendy Tong is an Internal Medicine Resident at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University.