title: The Poetry of Medicine.
abstract: Outlining an educational initiative for those who work in the National Health Service (NHS), this article argues that literary reflection has been too easily seen as a simple tool which may improve the practitioner's empathic skills and benefit patient-centred care. Using anecdotal feedback, the author reports ways in which a series of literary workshops held for professionals in the NHS have added to practitioners' general sense of well-being. Feedback shows that participants perceived literature in the workshop setting as being more than an enabler of 'empathy'. They reported that reflecting on literature in a group setting is an opportunity to think about their own autonomy, pleasure and creativity. The article concludes with a reflection about priorities in regulatory culture, its relationship to burnout, and ideas for future work.
authors.affiliation: Nineteenth Century Literature, University of Oxford , Oxford , UK.
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ratcliffe
keywords: Care Quality Commission (CQC); Medicine and literature; burnout; inspection; resilience; well-being