In the Shadow of Asclepius brings together poems written over a forty-year career of teaching and living in American medicine as a medical, psychoanalytic, organizational, and applied anthropologist. Howard Stein’s poems from American medicine are the fruit of careful listening, observing, and often bearing witness to people’s experiences and stories. Many poems in this book come from Stein’s love of and long familiarity with the culturescapes and landscapes of Oklahoma.
Through empathy and an inner resonance with the people and situations he evokes, Stein shows how poetry can not only contribute to medical humanities, and more broadly to the humanities in general, but can hone scientific, clinical acumen as well. That is, poetry can not only enhance self-awareness, empathy, and the doctor-patient relationship, but it can also improve the diagnostic process, the treatment, and the clinical outcome.
This book deserves a wide readership among medical educators, practicing physicians, professionals in the clinical behavioral sciences and medical humanities, nurses, patients and their families, and all those interested in the lives touched by medicine in the United States.
Please follow this link to learn more about the book and Howard Stein: http://www.asclepiusbook.com/index.php. You can purchase the book on the previous website and it is also available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com.
