Patient experience as poetry

This guest post was contributed by Madeleine Olding, Dunya Najat, Christina Louca, Abdullah Khawaja, Yogita Shanmugharaj, Sydney Rodrigues, Sofia Pinto, Fizza Qureshi, Raven Owie and Huma Kiani

We are a team of 10 second year medical students from King’s College London. This year we have spent one day a week at Rushey Green Group Practice in Catford, where we have been learning about general practice and what it might be like to work in the field in the future.

As part of this placement we were tasked with producing a clinical humanities project, with the goal of encouraging us as students to incorporate creative skills into our clinical practice. Spending a prolonged amount of time in the practice has given us a real insight into the working environment, but also what a complex and varied population the practice serves. Whilst clinical exposure is the primary reason for having a longitudinal placement such as ours in general practice, we have found that one of the most valuable lessons has in fact been acknowledging the diversity of people's experiences.

We wanted to create a project that offered a different perspective on medicine

From the outset we knew we wanted to create a project that offered a different perspective on medicine. As medical students we are bombarded with statistics, NICE guidelines and gold standard treatments, but it is only with clinical experience that one begins to understand how these are shaped around an individual: the patient. Since beginning clinical placement this year, we have been continually struck by the stories patients tell us, and the courage it takes to share them.

Our project aims to explore common presentations in general practice through the eyes of the patient. We looked not only at the blood pressure reading on the sphygmomanometer, but also at how it feels to be told it is going in the right direction. We read not just about the dosage used in medications for treating addiction, but the struggle of walking hours to go and collect them.

With the help of Care Opinion, we have used real patient accounts and composed haikus that reflect these experiences of the NHS. These haikus have been collated into an illustrated anthology ‘Appreciating the Patient Experience: an Anthology’ for distribution in our GP practice. We hope that it might inspire patients and staff alike to appreciate the diversity of experiences of healthcare, and to recognise the qualities of good delivery. We hope there are details within it that you find you can relate to or disagree with, laugh or frown at, but most importantly that make you think about how it felt to be that person.

The patient experience is at the heart of medicine, and at the heart of this project.

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Edited by Madeleine Olding and Christina Louca

Illustrations by Dunya Najat and Abdullah Khawaja

Poetry by Madeleine Olding, Dunya Najat, Christina Louca, Yogita Shanmugharaj, Sydney Rodrigues, Sofia Pinto, Fizza Qureshi, Raven Owie and Huma Kiani

A Very Private Person

Diabetes

“Just drop your trousers”
Felt embarrassed and distressed
I started to cry.

Genuine Concern

General Checkup

Welcomed away from fear
Comforted with real concern
Appreciated

All I Received was Judgement

Depression

Told I ‘looked okay’…
No empathy, caused self-harm…
No one checked on me…

They Need to Know How a Patient Feels

General Practice

How will you know what
to diagnose if I can’t
finish my story?

Not Just a Number

Upper Respiratory Tract Infection

Symptom: hard to breathe.
They are interested in me,
not just a number!

Suffering in Silence

Prescription Request

They did not shame me
for the problem in my pants
They found the right drug.

Download ‘Appreciating the Patient Experience: an Anthology’ (6MB pdf)