Walter Scott Peterson, "[M]y ‘case’ to work up’: William Carlos Williams’s Paterson" (William Carlos Williams Review, Vol 41, No. 2, 2024),

Oct 11, 2025

Walter Scott Peterson, a retired ophthalmologist and William Carlos Williams scholar, discusses the intertwining of medicine and poetry, emphasizing how Williams’s physician background shaped his poetic style. Joining him is Vamsi Koneru, a psychiatry professor with interests in poetry and trauma. They explore how poetry can enhance patient care and empathy, the concept of seeing patients as art, and the importance of language in building trust. They also delve into how integrating arts into STEM can enrich healthcare delivery and promote deeper understanding.

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INSIGHT

Poetry And Medicine As One Practice

William Carlos Williams treated poetry and medicine as one integrated practice that seeks connectedness.
His poetic attention mirrors clinical attention: gathering details to create meaning beyond the surface.

INSIGHT

Reading Trains Clinical Listening

Physicians gather holistic, multi-level information like poets gather images and meanings.
Reading poetry trains clinicians to perceive layered meanings and tolerate ambiguity in patient stories.

ADVICE

Use Art To Improve History Taking

Teach medical students close-looking exercises with art to improve history-taking and observation.
Encourage rereading and slow study so trainees find multiple levels of meaning in patient narratives.

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In “[M]y ‘case’ to work up’: William Carlos Williams’s Paterson” (William Carlos Williams Review, Volume 41, Number 2, 2024), Walter Scott Peterson argues that as a physician-poet Dr. Williams approaches his poetic material very much as he approaches his patients, and that the form of Paterson in particular is intentionally and actually reminiscent of the various forms taken by the medical case narrative, or “work-up.”

This episode concerns the poet and physician William Carlos Williams, whose mother, Raquel Hélène Rose Hoheb Williams, was born and raised in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. This conversation is part of the STEM to STEAM initiative, sponsored by the Teagle Foundation, that links medicine, science, technology and engineering to the sensibilities honed in the humanities—rethinking ways to blend and combine studies in literature, poetry, history, philosophy, and the arts as more central dimensions of technical preparation.

The discussion explores the profound connection between medical humanities and poetry, highlighting how their combination enriches our understanding of patient care, fosters empathy, and humanizes the medical experience. Medical humanities is an interdisciplinary field combining arts, literature, philosophy and cultural approaches to the human condition—considering each of these as insights into the emotional and ethical dimensions of healthcare. Poetry can serve as a powerful tool for expressing the complex feelings and narratives that often go unspoken in clinical settings. Blending poetry and the science of healthcare reminds us that medicine is not just a science but also an art, emphasizing compassion, understanding, and the shared human experience at the heart of healing.

In this episode are:

Walter Scott Peterson is a retired ophthalmologist and William Carlos Williams scholar; he is the author of the first book-length study of William Carlos Williams’s epic poem Paterson, titled An Approach to Paterson (Yale, 1967).
Vamsi Koneru is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry in the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.
Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, Professor of Humanities at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez.

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