Poem: The Gift of Generalism

This poem came as I tried to see the heart of GPs this year within data gathered at the World Organisation of Family Doctors in Sydney in 2023.

I have been working on this project with former Royal Australian College of GPs President Adjunct Prof Karen Price, and amazing GP leaders from USA and Canada - Professors Kurt Stange, Larry Green, Rebecca Etz, and Martina Kelly. I'm excited to share that this poem was published in the American Board of Family Medicine Journal.

It’s invisible when done well.

It will be missed like a mother when it’s gone.

It’s about seeing and knowing and caring,

about the past, and now, and then,

even when it hurts.

It’s noticing patterns and meanings

that map and hold the whole

as well as the parts.

It’s about shifting in and out

and round about

in how we know.

It’s honest uncertainty

that trusts curiosity

and the possibilities

inside not knowing.

It’s islands of precision

connecting to depths and horizons.

It’s about wading in close

toward a person and a family

behind the symptom or the smile.

It’s braving big wide oceans of pain,

to calm undercurrents

by staying near.

It’s about prevention and palliation,

cells and communities,

grief and gratefulness,

justice and joy.

It’s humble.

It kneels to bend power

from control, toward gift.

It’s tuning in to ordinary strength and fun

mixed in with pain and loss

in lives lived well.

It’s ripples of advocacy for the one,

built on knowing the many well.

It’s a rudder set toward healing

challenging the status quo

sensing what works

and carving pathways

to growing up and reconnecting to life.

It’s a wide heart with visions,

stories,

wisdoms,

struggles,

and joys,

navigating a place in the world.

It’s a way of attending,

connecting,

giving,

and receiving.

It’s about being a person.

Yes, a person,

who is let into a kind of miraculous gift:

a healer’s window on the world.