In The Talking Cure, physician-poet Jack Coulehan provides new poems plus a selection of work from six other books. His work explores the mysterious tension between tenderness and steadiness in medical practice plumbing into life's essential minutiae: the observed moment, the healing gesture, the internal response. These poems look beyond the difficulties of physical existence to see the worth and holiness of the individual. With directness, passion and even humor, they evoke an e...

Over the past forty years, the health humanities, previously called the medical humanities, has emerged as one of the most exciting fields for interdisciplinary scholarship, advancing humanistic inquiry into bioethics, human rights, health care, and the uses of technology. It has also helped inspire medical practitioners to engage in deeper reflection about the human elements of their practice.In Health Humanities Reader, editors Therese Jones, Delese Wear, and Lester D. F...