For scholars working on questions about medicine, healing, health, and illness using theories and methods from the humanities, fine and performing arts, and social sciences. All area studies (Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, Oceania, etc.) are welcome.

Using Humanities Content and Approach to Shape Conversations about Healthcare

1 reply, 2 voices Last updated by Suraiya Rahman 7 years, 5 months ago
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    • 4 December 2017 at 9:08 pm EST #9720

      Lois Leveen
      Participant
      @lois

      Howdy,

      I’m new to the group and thought I’d introduce myself by sharing an article about some of the medical humanities work I’m doing:  “Finding Purpose: Honing the Practice of Making Meaning in Medicine,” is about using poetry to facilitate discussions among physicians, among “interprofessional health care teams,” and between healthcare practitioners and patients. It’s just beenpublished by The Permanente Journal (Permanente is a medical journal akin to JAMA or the New England Journal of Medicine, so this article appears alongside ones about cutting edge research in medicine.)  Here’s the abstract:

      Despite decades of advances in diagnosing and treating a broad range of illnesses, many changes in our health care system impede true caregiving, leaving patients and practitioners dissatisfied and creating an emotional burden for practitioners that contributes to the staggering rates of physician burnout. Given this dissatisfaction and disconnection, practitioners and patients alike can benefit from structured opportunities to explore the expectations, assumptions, and emotions that shape our understanding of health and illness, and thus our experiences within the health care system. This article demonstrates how group discussions of poetry—something that might seem irrelevant to medical practice or physical wellness—can foster communication, connection, and collective reflection for physicians, interprofessional health care teams, and groups that include practitioners, patients, and families, allowing participants to once again find meaning in medicine.

      You can download the PDF here: http://www.thepermanentejournal.org/files/2017/17-048.pdf   It’s free, and written in an accessible style, and I am hoping it will do good work in the world, so please feel free to share it widely.

      In the footnotes you’ll see a reference to an earlier piece I wrote for the Los Angeles Review of Books, aimed more broadly to advocating for the value of humanities approaches and content in medicine, using Paul Kalanithi’s book WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR as a jumping off point.  That one is here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-hidden-dying-of-doctors-what-the-humanities-can-teach-medicine-and-why-we-all-need-medicine-to-learn-it/

      Best regards,

      Lois Leveen, PhD

      2017 Kienle Scholar in the Medical Humanities

      Penn State College of Medicine

    • 12 October 2018 at 5:16 pm EDT #17017

      Suraiya Rahman
      Participant
      @simirahm

      Hello! I’m so glad to find your thread here – I’m working on curriculum in finding meaning in medicine for residents and would love to discuss your ideas about how to go about it. The LARB article was spot on and extremely useful, and I’m reading the Permanente article as we speak. I am not able to private message you for 24hrs since I’m a new member, but just wanted to reach out and leave you my email in case you checked: simirahm@usc.edu

      Thank you!

      Simi Rahman MD

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