Sam is a fourth-year student at Harvard Medical School，but poetry is still a big part of his life，now with a new teacher，Rafael Campo，who believes poetry can benefit every doctor’s education and work. Rafael is a physician，professor and a highly respected poet.

“Poetry is in every encounter(邂逅)with my patients. I think healing is really in a very great way about poetry. And if we do anything when we’re with our patients，we’re really immersing(使沉浸于)ourselves in their stories，really hearing their voices. And，certainly，that’s what a poem does，”he said.

Rafael worries that something important has been lost in medicine and medical education today：humanity，which he finds in poetry. To end that，he leads a weekly reading and writing workshop for medical students and residents(住院医生).

He thinks medical training focuses too much on distancing the doctor from his or her patients，and poems can help close that gap.

Third-year resident Andrea Schwartz was one of the workshop regulars. She said. “I think there’s no other profession other than medicine that produces as many writers as it does. And I think that is because there’s just so much power in doctors and patients interacting when patients are at their saddest. ”Not everyone believes that’s what doctors should do，though.

Rafael said，“I was afraid of how people might judge me，actually. In the medical profession，as many people know，we must always put the emergency first. But，you know，that kind of treatment，if it’s happening in the hospital，very regrettably，sadly，results in a bad outcome. The family is sitting by the bedside. The patient hasn’t survived the cancer. Don’t we still have a role as healers there?”

In a poem titled“Health”，Rafael writes of the wish to live forever in a world made painless by our incurable joy. He says he will continue teaching students，helping patients and writing poems，his own brand of medicine.

A drug used to treat severe bleeding could save thousands of lives for mothers giving birth. A global trial of the drug found it reduced the risk of bleeding deaths during childbirth by nearby one-third. The study involved 20,000 women in 21 countries, mainly in Africa and Asia. The trial was carried out by London’s School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The drug is called tranexamic acid(氨甲环酸). It is low-cost and researchers said it does not cause serious side effects for mothers or babies.

The drug is used to treat mothers for severe bleeding during childbirth, also known as postpartum hemorrhage(产后出血). It is the leading cause of mother’s death worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

Haleema Shakur is the project director of the trial. She says despite medical advances in many countries, severe bleeding after childbirth remains a big problem in some parts of the world. “It’s one of the biggest killers of mothers. In Africa and Asia, about 10 percent of women will end up with severe bleeding.” The drug works by stopping blood clots(血凝块)from breaking down after a mother gives birth. The treatment can prevent the need for doctors to perform surgery to find the source of bleeding.

Shakur said the best results were reported when the drug was given to women as soon as possible after childbirth, “The earlier you give it—so within the first three hours of giving birth— the better the effect is.”

The next step will be to get the drug where it is needed and provide training for doctors and nurses on how to use it. During the trial, women were given the drug in a hospital. But researchers are looking for easier ways to administer the drug so it can be more widely used in small clinics and rural areas.

Nowadays. millions of people misuse and even overuse pain medications and other drugs. Research by the American National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA, 1999) shows that around 2% of the population over age 12 were using drugs non-medically.

NIDA views medications as a powerful force for good in the contemporary world. They reduce and remove pain for millions of people suffering from illness and disease. They make it possible for doctors to perform complicated surgery to save lives. Many people afflicted by serious medical conditions are able to control their symptoms and become active, contributing citizens. NIDA points out that most individuals who take these drags use them in a responsible.

Nevertheless, overuse of drugs such as opioids, central nervous system (CNS) depressants and stimulants does lead to harmful reliance in some people and is therefore becoming a serious public health concern. Although this abuse affects many people worldwide, particular trends of concern to the medical profession in the US appear among older adults, teenagers arid women.

Though it may be a surprise to many, the misuse of medications may be the most common form of drug abuse among the elderly. Dr Kenneth Schrader of Duke University, North Carolina states that although the elderly represent about 13% of the US population, those aged 65 and over account for the consumption of one third of all drugs. People in this age group use medications roughly three times more than the general population and have poorer compliance with instruction for use. In another study of elderly patients admitted to treatment programs, 70% were women who had overused medicines.

Unfortunately, this trend among women does not only affect those aged over. In general, among women and men who are using either an anti-anxiety drug or a sedative, women are twice as likely to become addicted. In addition, statistics compiled for 12-17 year olds show that teenage girls are more likely than teenage boys to begin overusing psychotherapeutic medication such as painkillers, tranquillizers, stimulants and sedatives.