Sonata for Kaleidoscope

June 2025 | Vol. 69, No. 2
Written by Samuel Garloff, DO

Ladies and Gentlemen, as I peer through my View-Master, click through the various scenes and witness the rebirth of the JPOMA. The transition from the printed to an online edition is complete, and we hope it meets with your approval.

In past years, I advocated for the inclusion of original poetry in the journal. With the rebirth of the JPOMA, this has expanded into a creative writing section. I couldn't be happier

Science and the arts have always advanced hand in hand. Einstein played violin. After all, could a string instrument produce music without the physics of harmonics? How could Orpheus attempt to rescue Eurydice from the underworld without the science of the lyre? One of the world's greatest playwrights was physician Anton Chekhov, who famously said, "Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress." If you would like a more recent example, read any of the works of Robin Cook, MD. Fond of the visual arts? Consider the anatomical drawings of Frank Netter, MD. The greatest concert violinist I ever met is a psychiatrist who had his medical school expenses paid by Leonard Bernstein.

Then there is poetry. I'm convinced the poet views life, as does a psychiatrist on occasion, on the oblique. Of course, mathematicians and physicists do also. They can't avoid it. The JPOMA features poetry written by new authors and by Richard Donze, DO, MPH

I first read one of Dr. Donze's poems in JAMA. Since then, I discovered he has been published in several journals besides JAMA, including the Annals of Internal Medicine, the Journal of Medical Humanities and others. His work has also been republished in several anthologies of physician poetry: Uncharted Lines; Voices from the Front Lines: the Pandemic and the Humanities; Blood and Bone: Poems by Physicians; and Primary Care: More Poems by Physicians. His own collection of medical and non-medical poems titled The Natural Order of Things was published in 2021 by Finishing Line Press, the same publisher that will lease his novel The Secret Saint Anthony Prayer this August. We are proud to have him join us as our "Poet in Residence." Hopefully, some of you visual artists will soon join him

I urge everyone to explore and nourish their creative side and share it with your colleagues. We ask that you submit creative writings, both poetry and prose, or really any style, to James Eirkson at [email protected], or to me at [email protected]. If you want to share drawings, we are certainly more than interested.

After all, could we be the physicians we pride ourselves to be without viewing Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, reading the description of humanity by Walt Whitman in "I Sing the Body Electric," studying the writings of A.T. Still, or listening awash to the Baroque and Renaissance masters who were artists, physicians and scientists, leaving us incredible historical perspectives through their music?

No. If Medicine is an art, we are the masters. Share your talents.

Respectfully, WGRP