ABSTRACT
This chapter falls into three parts. The first offers a reflection on the ways in which literature has been used in continuing professional development (CPD) for clinicians and trainees with particular focus on the ways in which specific literary expertise might matter to the teaching of the medical/health humanities in primary and secondary care settings. We further argue that there is, all too often, fuzziness and bad faith when literary materials are used in medical teaching – with the concept of ‘empathy’ becoming a particular casualty. We also note the institutional motivation to claim too much for literary CPD interventions and the problematic model of measurable outcomes, which may map poorly onto reflective group work and CPD in general. The second part of the chapter offers an account of a workshop we held for general practitioners, one of many that were part of our ‘Poetry of Medicine’ initiative during the period 2010–2019, including transcriptions of the participants’ reflections on metaphor, time, and space, with texts ranging from Sylvia Plath’s ‘Balloons’ to Kafka’s ‘A Country Doctor’. The chapter concludes with thoughts about why such activities have become almost unsustainable in the current political climate. Thus, our title: ‘has the poetry of medicine burnt out?’
