"Wounds"

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares his poem "Wounds," which was recently featured in the December 2024 issue of Psychiatric Times.

As a consultation-liaison psychiatrist, Berlin spent a fair amount of time seeing wounded surgical patients who needed additional care to manage their post-op delirium. These experiences gave him a deep appreciation of the surgeons and their skills; the nurses’ caring and expertise; the strength of families, loved ones, and the patients’ themselves.

Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 26 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.