Unit 8Section 5 Exercise 19Medical Uncertainty & ErrorPhysician Arrogance

The poem below, written about 4 decades ago, still speaks to our contemporary experience. In fact, there is a lot in the scene from Moliere's Dom Juan on the previous page that resonates here. Think about the recurrent themes.

“Doctors,” by Anne Sexton

They work with herbs
and penicillin.
They work with gentleness
and the scalpel.
They dig out the cancer,
close an incision
and say a prayer
to the poverty of the skin.
They are not Gods
though they would like to be,
they are only human.
Many humans die.
They die like the tender,
palpitating berries
in November.
But all along the doctors remember:
First do no harm.
They would kiss it if it would heal.
It would not heal.

If the doctors cure
then the sun sees it.
If the doctors kill
then the earth hides it.
The doctors should fear arrogance
more than cardiac arrest.
If they are too proud,
and some are,
then they leave home on horseback
but God returns them on foot.

Study Questions

1. What does Sexton’s poem say about medical uncertainty and the limitations of doctors?

2. What do phrases like “say a prayer to the poverty of the skin” and “they would kiss it if it would heal” indicate about the fallibility of doctors?

3. Sexton warns doctors to “fear arrogance.” Why? What is there to be afraid of exactly? Contrariwise, what might be specific benefits of humility?