The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine will be celebrating Poetry in Medicine, a poetry competition that recognizes the relationship between medicine and art. The event will feature the artistic endeavors of Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine students as well as master of fine arts students and undergraduates at Virginia Tech.

The celebration will take place April 25 at 1 p.m. at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center in downtown Roanoke. The event will include poetry readings by the competition winners as well as a reading by the competition’s judge, Dr. J. Hayden Hollingsworth. A poet and retired physician from Roanoke, Dr. Hollingsworth also writes a column for the Roanoke Star.

The Poetry in Medicine competition is sponsored by the Tuberculosis Foundation of Virginia and Community High School for Arts and Academics. The program was created by Dr. Molly O’Dell, a poet and director of the New River Health District and a team that included Dr. David Trinkle, associate dean for community and culture and a founder of the Creativity in Health Education Program at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine; Cara Modisett and Josh Chapman, writers and literary event producers at Community High School for Arts and Academics; Bob Hicok, an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech and honored poet; and Bernice Hausman, a professor of English at Virginia Tech and a professor of interprofessionalism at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.

“We are so excited to build on the success of last year’s event,” said O’Dell. “This is a great opportunity for students at Virginia Tech and the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine to express their creativity. Dr. Hollingsworth is a terrific addition to the competition, and his insights will be greatly appreciated.”

The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute joins the basic science, life science, bioinformatics, and engineering strengths of Virginia Tech with the medical practice and medical education experience of Carilion Clinic. Virginia Tech Carilion is located in a new biomedical health sciences campus in Roanoke at 2 Riverside Circle.

Written by Susannah Netherland