The day after the research period was launched, I walked to the King James Library and found myself surprised that not only were there free seats, but many beside friends from our Laidlaw cohort. Settled between stacks of books and typing away on laptops, we began our research together.

My research project is titled as follows: ‘Self-Advocate and Listen: Examining the Importance of Contemporary Poetry to Improving Communication between Medical Professionals and Young Adult Patients.’ Having both experienced the impact of ineffective communication in medical settings and written poetry to encourage conversations about organ donation, it feels natural and exciting to combine the disciplines of medicine and literature for academic research. I hope that, by the end of the six weeks, I will have a full draft of my essay, so that I may receive feedback from my supervisor and peers ahead of the deadline. In the long term, I also aim to apply my research findings to the development of workshops and presentations to positively impact the lives of young adult patients and work of medical professionals, in addition to raising greater public awareness about the issue.

If you would like to understand the inspiration behind my research in more detail, I have written about it in the following two blogs for the Children’s Liver Disease Foundation: Childhood liver disease - a sibling's perspective - Childrens Liver Disease Foundation How my experience as a sibling still inspires me - Childrens Liver Disease Foundation.

So far, I have started reading existing academic literature on poetry and medicine, including multiple articles from the Routledge Handbook of Medicine and Poetry (edited by Alan Bleakley and Shane Neilson) [1]. Other texts that are proving incredibly helpful for beginning my research include The Undying by Anne Boyer [2], Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag [3], and The Limits of Science by Peter Medawar [4]. The poem It’s a Beautiful Day to be told You’ll be Sick Forever from Emma Taylor’s pamphlet Bed & Breakfast [5] is also the first I have selected to form part of a short anthology of ten contemporary poems relevant to my research.

After sending out participant adverts on social media, I have received responses and will conduct the first semi-structured interviews concerning young adults’ experiences of communication in medical settings next week.

The start of the research period has been a wonderful experience and opportunity to learn. I am grateful to be part of such a supportive and diverse community. We have already shared a trip to Janetta’s, had lunch in St Mary’s Quad, welcomed the students from Duke University, and shown genuine interest and enthusiasm to learn more about one another’s research. This is the kind of simple joy that makes a week feel like a few well-spent hours. And I look forward to how everyone’s projects will blossom during the next five.

[1] Bleakley, Alan., and Shane Neilson. Routledge Handbook of Medicine and Poetry. Routledge, 2024.

[2] Boyer, Anne. The Undying. Penguin Books, 2020.

[3] Sontag, Susan. Illness as Metaphor & Aids and its Metaphors. Penguin Books, 2002.

[4] Medawar, Peter. The Limits of Science. Oxford University Press, 1985.

[5] Taylor, Emma. Bed & Breakfast. Amazon, 2024.