Healing Words: Poetry & Medicine tells the stories of patients whose lives have been dramatically changed by the incorporation of poetry into their recovery process. At a time when Americans have grown cynical about healthcare costs, impersonal treatment and the intrusion of corporate self-interest in the doctor-patient relationship, this film affirms that poetry and art can build understanding and compassion between doctor and patient and help facilitate healing among the most critically ill.
Healing Words reminds viewers that the best medicine involves a doctor at the bedside listening sincerely to a patient. The film follows
Dr. John Graham-Pole and poet John Fox as they enter hospital rooms and help patients write poems as part of the healing process. Compassion,
Healing Words shows, can flourish in the unlikeliest of places: a sterile hospital room.
Segment A (0:00 - 11:00)Joan Baranow, Producer of the
PBS documentary,
Healing Words: Poetry & Medicine; and
David Watts, MD, author of
The Orange Wire Problem.
Segment B (11:01 - 22:00)Dr. Catharine Clark-Sayles, MD, Internal Medicine Specialist (Geriatrics), author of
One Breath, and
Laurel Feigenbaum, artist, poet, mother and wife to a retired physician.
Segment C (22:01 - 33:00)Dr. Dawn McGuire, MD, author of
Hands On; and
Joan Baranow.
More about Joan BaranowJoan Baranow grew up in Connecticut, Maryland, and upstate New York, and now makes her home in Mill Valley, California with her husband, poet
David Watts. She finds inspiration from the natural world of the West Coast as well as from the landscapes of her childhood. Her poems have appeared in
The Antioch Review,
Feminist Studies,
The Spoon River Poetry Review,
US-1 Worksheets,
Western Humanities Review,
The Western Journal of Medicine, and elsewhere. She currently has a poem sequence featured in the online journal
Feminism and Nonviolence Studies.
More about David WattsDr. David Watts’ second book of stories,
The Orange Wire Problem, along with
Bedside Manners, embodies explorations into the complexities, dangers, ethics and mysteries of healing. He has published five books of poetry, one under his avant-garde pseudonym,
Harvey Ellis, and produced a CD of “word-jazz.”
More about Catharine Clark-SaylesAfter a military-brat childhood of frequent moves across the United States, she attended college and medical school in Colorado then moved to Northern California in 1979 for medical training as an Army physician. Better as a doctor than as a soldier she chose civilian life and a private practice specializing in older adults. Dr. Clark-Sayles has learned poetry by reading and working with mentor poets
Margaret Kaufman,
Robert Sward and
David St. John. She has had many poems published in medical journals and anthologies.
One Breath is her first book. The title comes from advice she was given as an intern: in an emergency take one breath and then another.
More about Dawn McGuireDawn McGuire, M.D., is Chief Medical Officer of
Acologix, Inc., a privately held biopharmaceutical company. As a board certified neurologist with more than a decade of executive leadership in drug development, including roles as CEO, Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Medical Officer. Dr. McGuire has published more than 40 scientific articles, book chapters and invited interviews, and has received numerous awards, including in 2005 the People to People Award for a Virtual Clinic for helping physicians treat
AIDS in Ethiopia.
© 2010 by
On the Path Productions, LLC. All rights reserved.
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