PLN #8 Poetry, Painting to Earn an M.D.

The article, "Poetry, Painting to Earn an M.D," by Laura Landro matters to me because doctors who have the most empathy always make the best doctors. Whenever I go to the doctor, I hate it, but the doctors with the most empathy always make my sick days a lot better. That's why it is so important to teach this at medical school. Having a writing workshop at college is a good idea because this will get doctors in training thinking about patients and will make them a better doctor. Understanding your patient and listening to them to figure out what is happening in their life is key, which can be taught through writing. Writing poetry, shorts stories, and any other writing will get their experiences on paper and get them thinking about what it's like to be a patient. This article is similar to PLN #7 in the way that we need to learn more than just the basics, we need to learn critical thinking. Instead of performing tons of surgeries a day to learn how to become a doctor, having a writing lab dealing with people's experiences will help doctors be the best they can in their profession. Death is one of the hardest things to go through and to deal with, when doctors can understand what is happening in someone's life when this happens to them, their patient will have a much easier time. Patients are always number one in the medical career cluster, after all that is what being a doctor is all about. So if a doctor can learn to be empathetic, they will get much more out of the M.D. degree.