"Touch"

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares his poem "Touch." This poem is about Berlin's first day in physical diagnosis course where a group of medical students shadow a resident physician on the medical wards, and begin to develop their physical examination skills. In the poem, Berlin is trying to find a femoral artery pulse.

Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 27 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is an instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.