Abstract
Through a qualitative reading of Virna Teixeira’s poetry in the light of the historical conditions of struggle over the knowledge and practices of medicine, we suggest some possible lines of future development for literary scholarship in the Medical Humanities from the Cono Sur. Beyond the traditional narrower boundaries of the listening relationship between doctor and patient and the issue of empathy, the poetic word is brought forth as a part of a therapeutic protocol, while literary studies in the way of the Medical Humanities appear as the investigation of that which literature has to offer for the care of the bodies.
Keywords:
Latin America; Medical Humanities; literature; narrative medicine; poetry
