April is National Poetry Month, and to celebrate, Doximity asked users to submit haikus about medicine. If you’re not familiar, haikus traditionally follow a 5-7-5 syllable structure (5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, and 5 in the last).

Below are the editors’ 10 favorites. (Note that a handful exceed the syllable limit — but sometimes rules are meant to be broken!)

Patient Quirks

I HAVE TO BE SEEN!!

OK. We will squeeze you in.

Patient then no-shows.

Eric Pennock, MD, ophthalmology

“Just a quick question”

Forty-five minute workup

You’re welcome. Goodbye

Onaola Adedeji, MD, family medicine

Labs all reassuring

Patient looks disappointed!

Wanted something wrong

Shafi Rana, MD, family medicine

The Meaning of Medicine

Child psychiatry

Changing children's trajectories

What could be better?

Charles Zeanah Jr., MD, psychiatry

Tender touch calms pain

Healing travels through the words

Hope blooms in the room

Francisco Torres, MD, PM&R

Pediatrician

Varied problems always hugs

Who is healing whom?

Jennifer Nordby, MD, pediatrics

Medical Superstitions

Calm night in ED

Don't say the Q word

A medical jinx

Helen Miller, MD, pediatrics

Another full moon

The usual regulars

The circle of life.

Timothy Huber, MD, emergency medicine

And Finally … Lessons Worth Repeating

You need to sleep more

Exercise will go far too

And stay off the phone

S. Omar Hassan, MD, psychiatry

Ophthalmology.

Please, do spell it correctly.

Ophthalmology.

Brent Woodland, MD, (what else) ophthalmology 👀

Do you have a poem, comic, work of lyric prose, or flash fiction piece related to medicine that you’d like to share with the community? Submit to our Medical Humanities vertical here.

Illustration by Jennifer Bogartz