John Keats Statue & Plaque

The statue of John Keats outside Guy’s Hospital sits in one of the original arches from old London Bridge, accompanied by a plaque honouring his medical career. Before becoming a renowned poet, Keats trained in pharmacy and surgery, excelling at Guy’s Hospital, where he became a “dresser” and saved a gunshot victim’s life in 1816. His poetry, deeply shaped by firsthand exposure to suffering and 19th-century medicine’s brutal realities, reflects a profound, unsentimental understanding of human pain.