Fellow Physician Contributing Writer
Stanford University School of Medicine
Megha Shankar is a health services research fellow at the Palo Alto VA and CHP/PCOR at Stanford University. She completed her undergraduate degree in anthropology and biology at the University of Chicago, medical school at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, and internal medicine residency at the University of Washington.
This elderly yet jolly gentleman answers our unending questions about his physical health, but it is his question to us that makes me pause. Do I have time for a poem? This busy clinic day, I stop reflecting on why his heart stopped beating and instead what motivates his heart to beat in the first place.
A collection of poems entitled “Meditations on God.”
Resident Physician Contributing Writer
University Hospital of Krakow, Poland
Adrian Poniatowski is native New Yorker and a physician poet. He studied history at Cornell University before going on to finish medical school in Poland at Jagiellonian University. He received an appointment to stay on at his alma mater as Lecturer in Pathophysiology, in addition to his duties as an intern physician at the University Hospital of Krakow, Poland. He draws inspiration from his Catholic faith and long walks spent meditating on the sublime beauty of daily life. His artistic motto is Ars neptis Dei, a paraphrase from the
Divine Comedy proclaiming that “Art is the granddaughter of God.”
