Words as Medicine with Laura Kolbe, MD
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What is the focus of the interview with Dr. Laura Kolbe?
CodeWack is a podcast that shines a light on our Calus healthcare system and what we can do about it. It reveals the healthcare hassles that threaten our peace of mind, our financial security, and at times our very lives. Hosted by Brenda Gazar, you'll hear interviews with the sharpest minds in healthcare advocacy. Listen to Code WAC wherever you get your podcasts, or by going to code whack dot libsen dot com. Support for the Nocturnist comes from the California Medical Association.
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You're listening to the Nocturnous Conversations. I'm Emily Silverman. Today we speak with Laura Colby, a poet, physician, and medical ethicist. Her poetry collection, Little Pharma, won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize in 2021. She's currently writing a nonfiction book that blends memoir with the history of medicine and the arts. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, the New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, Poetry, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. She practices hospital medicine at the New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City. Before I spoke with Laura, I asked her to read a poem from Little Pharma called Buried Abesidery for Intensive Care.
Here's Laura.
Buried a besidery for intensive care. It's called an awakening trial when the pleasanter drugs stop. It's called bucking when the lungs and vent jam wind against each other. Is called clubbing when the fingernails thicken to spoons from lack of oxygen. It's called drug fever when no one knows why. It's called elevation when the eyes can see where the feet should be. It's called fasting when radiology foretells like a speaking goat on the blood blue mountain. It's called gunk when they suction the trach. Is called HIPAA when no one tells. Is called inspiration just before the triggered cough. It's called jaw thrust when the head is prepared for the Macintosh blade. It's called kin when they don't shy speechless from the gunk.
And when they do. It's called labored when breath outmoans machines. It's called manual blood pressure when you hope the machine lied. It's called nitropresside when the body is flushed like a cinema. It's called octreatide when the blood untucks the napkin of the diner. It's called a pan scan when the body won't tell. It's called a query when insurer and the bank won't tell. Called resuscitation, but it isn't. Called shock when it started as resuscitation. Called Trendellenberg when the feet are in the air. called underventilation when the gas is more like the future planets. Called the vagus nerve, when touching the neck, makes the rhythm stop. Called weaning when the fentanyl hangs salivary at the chin of the bed.
Called Xeriform when the gauze smells like gin and tonic. Called you when it's a question of error. Called zeroing out when they reset the machines for the next body.
Thank you so much, Laura, for that reading and for being here today.
Thank you for having me.
So before I begin I just wanted to apologize to the audience for my raspy voice. I am recovering from COVID, so forgive me for that. At this
point we've all
been there.
How does the poem “Buried Abesidery for Intensive Care” illustrate medical language?
Uh, unfortunately, that seems to be the truth.
Yeah.
I loved this book of poetry, Little Pharma, such rich language, so many powerful images, and I'm really excited to talk to you about it today. Thanks. But to start, I was doing some research on you and your work, and I learned that you got the idea to be a doctor. While you were working at a harm reduction center on the Lower East Side. And so I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that.
Yeah, absolutely. From a very young age, I loved stories and loved poetry. I loved to read, I loved to write. I had lots of failed novels as a kindergartner and epic poems. So it was very clear that I wanted a life that was entrenched in narrative and probably a literary life.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the focus of the interview with Dr. Laura Kolbe?
0:00–4:03
2
How does the poem “Buried Abesidery for Intensive Care” illustrate medical language?
4:03–10:08
3
Why did Dr. Kolbe choose to become a physician after her work at a harm‑reduction center?
10:08–18:15
4
How does clinical ethics consulting work in her hospital practice?
18:15–25:26
5
What role does language and word choice play in her poetry and medicine?
25:26–35:35
6
Who or what is “Little Pharma” and how does the persona shape the collection?
35:35–43:18
7
What advice does she give to clinicians who want to start writing poetry?
43:18–45:23