Hospitals
Ravenna Raven
Association of American Medical Colleges, 2021
Hospitals
Ravenna Raven
Georgetown University Medical Center, 2020
Hospitals
Ravenna Raven
Inova Schar Cancer Institute, 2019
Conferences
Ravenna Raven
The Gold Humanism Summit, 2019

Hospitals

Association of American Medical Colleges, 2021

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) leads and serves the academic medicine community to improve the health of people everywhere. In partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, Listener Poets from The Good Listening Project spoke with 252 of their constituents from all areas of medical education. This book contains the resulting poems and stories, written by our Listener Poets.

Topics on the minds of participants ranged widely in a time marked by a global pandemic, widespread demonstrations around racial equity, and the persistent dedication of healthcare workers. Listener Poets began each conversation by asking, “What should the poem be about?” Then, they listened.

 

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Volume 1

August - November 2020

Volume 2

December 2020 -

March 2021

Volume 3

March - May 2021

Poems in this Collection
To My Daughters, Who Will Need to Know poem-Listener Poet Yvette Perry-The Good Listening Project-03-2021.jpeg
To My Daughters, Who Will Need to Know

This physician had recently started a new job when the pandemic hit.

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Decision Fatigue poem-Elle Klassen-The Good Listening Project-2021-03.JPG
Decision Fatigue

“I feel like I have decision fatigue,” she told me. It was normal for her to make many choices at work, but COVID had dramatically increased the number of medical decisions she had to make at home.

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Yosef the Builder - Listener Poet Yvette Perry - The Good Listening Project.jpeg
Yosef the Builder

This physician discussed being the only one in his practice network with expertise in patients with a specific type of chronic pain.

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So Much More to Medicine poem-Listener Poet Ravenna Raven-The Good Listening Project-2021-05.jpeg
So Much More to Medicine

“Our constituents are uniquely affected by the pandemic,” they said. This poemee was an educational psychologist who spoke about how much they missed working in person with med students, healthcare staff, and medical educators.

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Re-set poem-Listener Poet Yvette Perry-The Good Listening Project-2021-04.png
Re-set

"I grew from the experience – though I think it aged me 10 years!" This is how a resident described a turning point with a specific patient when he recognized how burned out he was.

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A Kind Reminder poem - Jenny Hegland - The Good Listening Project 1.jpg
A Kind Reminder

“There’s a constant feeling inside that I should be doing more,” she said. “But I also want to be kind to myself and recognize all that I’ve given.”

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The Good Listening Project - Elizabeth Pringle - Caregiver, Care For Yourself poem.jpeg
Caregiver, Care For Yourself

He brought the tools of mindfulness and self-care to medical students, many of whom had been studying all this past year, 10 hours a day, day after day, in isolation.

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The Good Listening Project - Yvette Perry - Forbearance poem.jpeg
Forbearance

He had recently lost his father to COVID-19 and was reflecting on forgiveness. For the majority of his life with his father, they did not have a positive relationship. However, in the last three years of life, his father lost his memory and his personality changed into someone who was loving and kind.

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The Good Listening Project - Listener Poet Jenny Hegland - home poem.jpg
home

“When you get to hear the hidden sides of people’s stories, you never look at people the same,” she said, with a noticeable tenderness in her voice. This woman was a therapist who supported physicians and residents. “Sometimes as I lay in bed at night I inhabit the stories people share with me.”

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The Good Listening Project - Jenny Hegland - The Calling poem.JPG
The Calling

“When everything else stops, we keep going,” she began. This woman had always wanted to be a physician, and as a medical school student, was about to become the seventh generation of physicians on her mother’s side of the family.

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The Good Listening Project - Frankie Abralind - PPE poem.jpg
PPE

She was tired after working twelve straight days on her current rotation. It was her third year of medical school, and she was already feeling burnt out. “I have five more years like this,” she said. “My sister tells me, ‘Keep pushing, you can get through it,’ but I don’t know if I can.”

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Georgetown University Medical Center, 2020

Georgetown University Medical Center, 2020.jpg

Two Listener Poets brought their typewriters to Georgetown University Medical Center for one week, right before the COVID-19 pandemic began to shut things down in earnest, with a goal of helping fight burnout. Their signs offered Free Custom Poetry. Curious people stopped to take them up on it. Each time, the Listener Poet asked, “What should the poem be about?” Then, they listened.

Inspired by those conversations, the poems in this book tell the stories of some of the humans who spend time there.

Listener Poets Ravenna Raven and Jenny Hegland

Washington, D.C.

Poems in this Collection
The Good Listening Project - Ravenna Raven - I Already Miss This poem.jpeg
I Already Miss This

"I struggled to make friends until my junior year of high school," she said. "Then I finally opened up and became friends with so many people." She was now a freshman at Georgetown University and was learning how to bond with her new peers.

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The Good Listening Project - Jenny Hegland - True Friendship poem.jpeg
True Friendship

She immediately knew that she didn’t want her poem to be about cancer. She wanted it to be about friendship and asked if she could share a recent story.

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The Good Listening Project - Jenny Hegland - Cat Comfort poem.JPG
Cat Comfort

“I miss my four cats back home,” she said. “Want to see pictures of them?!” She was a graduate student in biotechnology. She explained that the program consumed her life. She saw other students studying abroad, posting pictures of travel and fun, but there was no room for that in her life.

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Johns Hopkins Sibley Memorial Hospital, 2020

Johns Hopkins Sibley Memorial Hospital 2020 Collection Cover.jpg

Our Listener Poets spent six weeks visiting several units of Johns Hopkins Sibley Memorial Hospital. When a curious person saw their signs and stopped to take them up on the Free Custom Poetry they offered, each Listener Poet asked, “What should the poem be about?” Then, they listened.

Inspired by those conversations, the poems in this book tell the stories of some of the humans who work there.

Listener Poets Jenny Hegland, Ravenna Raven, and Frankie Abralind

Washington, D.C.

Poems in this Collection
The Good Listening Project - Ravenna Raven - The Art of Caring poem.jpeg
The Art of Caring

She began her career as a hospice volunteer and then worked as a critical care provider in the Emergency Department for many years. She told me she always wanted her patients to feel empowered while in her care. “This feeling has to do with quality of life,” she said.

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The Good Listening Project - Ravenna Raven - Why I Take My Time poem.JPG
Why I Take My Time

We talked when she had a quick break during her shift at the Infusion Center. She told me how important it was for her to make the most of the moments she had to make connections with people.

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The Good Listening Project - Ravenna Raven - Traveling Nurse poem.jpeg
Traveling Nurse

She told me that she had lived in Florida for 50 years but now that she had an empty nest, she’d become a traveling nurse so she could live in different places. “I was only supposed to be in D.C. for three months,” she said, “but now I’ve been here for nine because I just love it so much.”

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Inova Schar Cancer Institute, 2019

Inova Schar 2019 Collection Cover.jpg

Every Wednesday, a Listener Poet would sit in a public space at Inova's Schar Cancer Institute in Fairfax, Virginia with a Free Custom Poetry sign and a typewriter. When a curious person stopped to take up the offer, the Listener Poet would ask, "What should the poem be about?" Then, they listened.

The poems in this book, inspired by those conversations, tell the stories of some of the humans in that hospital.

Listener Poets Katherine Gekker and Frankie Abralind

Fairfax, Virginia

Erie Shores Healthcare, 2019

Erie Shores Healthcare 2019 Collection Cover.jpg

For four weeks, Listener Poet Elle Klassen sat in the cafeteria of a hospital in Leamington, Ontario with a sign advertising Free Custom Poetry and her typewriter. When curious folks took her up on the offer, she asked, “What should the poem be about?” Then, she listened.

These poems, inspired by those conversations, tell the stories of some of the humans in that hospital.

Listener Poet Elle Klassen

Leamington, Ontario

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Poems in this Collection
The Good Listening Project - Elle Klassen - I Pour Feverishly poem.jpeg
I Pour Feverishly

"I’m ensconced in the system." He was getting paid quite well to do his job in the healthcare sector, but he had internal conflict about how the system worked. He asked me, "Did you know that about 50% of healthcare dollars are spent on the last six months of life?"

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Johns Hopkins Sibley Memorial Hospital, 2018

Johns Hopkins Sibley Memorial Hospital 2018 Collection Cover.jpg

Over the course of a month and a half, poet Elle Klassen had one-on-one conversations with nurses, patients, doctors, family members, clinical technicians, administrators – really anyone who approached her and her typewriter at the Free Custom Poetry table she’d set up in their hospital.

The poems inspired by these conversations tell the stories of some of those humans.

Listener Poet Elle Klassen

Washington, D.C.

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Poems in this Collection
The Good Listening Project - Elle Klassen - the strongest creature is the phoenix poem.JPG
the strongest creature

Being in healthcare can be extremely rewarding, but it comes with the occupational hazard of loss. This woman loved the work she did with dementia patients and the connections she was able to form with them. However, she also struggled with the frequent loss of people she had bonded with.

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