Physicians don't have enough time with new patients, Lydiatt explains. And even if we did, they can't assimilate all that information or comprehend it, because they are in such an emotional shock over having cancer. Often it's surprising how very little they take from what you tell them. Lydiatt's editor wanted him to include patient quotes in his book, but he initially resisted. In medicine we're trained in science and science is very empirical and abhors the anecdotal.
Patient quotes are the quintessence of anecdote.
Kooser had sent a copy of Winter Morning Walks to Lydiatt, and the physician was reading it one day before he started his own writing. I wrote early in the morning, when my kids were asleep. That's when it dawned on me that Ted could say in three or four stanzas what I couldn't say in three or four pages. One of his poems, 'At the Cancer Clinic,' still brings me to tears nearly every time I read it. Lydiatt selected three more of the poems that he felt especially spoke to his patients' experience and, with some trepidation, approached the poet for permission to use them.