The Waiting Room, Revisited

One place where books (and magazines, and perhaps poetry pamphlets) are still ubiquitous is in physicians ’ waiting rooms. This observation suggests that more than simply providing a benign distraction, the written word might have therapeutic potential. (The first modern American hospital, the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, by the late 1700s contained a library designed by Benjamin Rush, a fou nding father who was also a physician and an early proponent of bibliotherapy, the prescribing of reading and writing to the mentally ill, among other progressive health care reforms; this discipline is still practiced today by psychiatrists, poetry therapists, and other care professionals.) Meanwhi le, the waiting room remains the setting for many poems submitted to and published by JAMA. In this week’s iteration, a patient sits alone awaiting a doctor’s appointment, accompanied only by a book. Plain language that connotes frequent visits contrasts unexpectedly with the patient’s opennes s “to memory,/imagination,/or meditation,” each ready to be more profoundly engaged. The space’s “hydration station,” and “painted arrows,” intended to provide comfort and reassurance, are reminders of the dire treatments and pointed needles of medical care. The absence of a clock is a nother signifier of discomfiture (the endless wait) and yet, through the poem’s continuing solemn diction, an evocation of time immeasurable. The deft segue to the book the patient has bro...
Source: JAMA - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research