Tag: health humanities

LitMed: Literature Arts Medicine Database

Scholars, educators, patients, students, and anyone interested in medical humanities can search this site for annotated entries that describe works of literature, fine art, visual art and performing art related to medicine. Housed at the NYU School of Medicine, the annotations are written by an editoral board of medical humanities scholars from across North America.

Users of the site can search by words or phrases of their own, peruse an alphabetical index of titles, or use the extensive system of tags. It is possible to narrow a search to a particular kind of work (e.g., “All visual arts” or just photography, painting/drawing, or sculpture) or to medical humanities topics (e.g., history of medicine, medical anthropology, science and medicine). Stories by “physician” or “nurse” can also be searched. The site has over 3000 items at the time of this submission.

An entry includes a summary description of the work as well as a commentary.

Health Humanities syllabus repository

The Health Humanities Consortium’s Syllabus Repository is a searchable database of syllabi from academic, professional development, and public education programs with a connection to health humanities. Not all of the syllabi are focused on health narratives, but many are, and many of the syllabi on broader health humanities-related topics include narrative readings, assignments, and other material. For example, a search for the topic, “narrative,” brought up numerous results, including courses on narrative medicine, illness stories, medicine and literature, autobiography, media, writing, social history, and gender and race.

The site is searchable by course topic, discipline, level of course, and modality. Users are also invited to share their own syllabi.

The Almost Right Word: The Move From Medical to Health Humanities.

Concise summary of the history of medical humanities and how a distinct understanding of health humanities (using disability studies as an example, emphasizing how much of living with disabilities does not happen in medical contexts) contributes to analyzing and understanding human factors in health. Useful as background for undergraduate courses; expanding conversation for pre-health and health professional students.

Graphic Medicine: Ill-conceived and well drawn.

An online collection of graphic medicine texts and teaching resources for introducing graphic medicine to different audiences: high school grades 7-10, undergraduates. Features a well-designed module “Comics for health and medicine,” organized as an introduction to graphic medicine for undergraduates. The module offers outlines for 7 class sessions, links to suggested readings (graphic texts as well as reference material such as PubMed), discussion questions, activities and assignments, adapted from a Penn State College of Medicine course offered to fourth year medical students. Also offers a lesson plan for grades 7-10.

Art + Medicine | Speaking of Race

This one hour PBS broadcast features voices of many physicians of color at the University of Minnesota. Each physician talks about instances of race impacting their practice as well as the care that patients of color receive. It begins discussion of why race is important to talk about in health care and ends on each provider’s favorite aspect of teaching and medicine.

Fae Kayarian: Physician in Training, Poet in Progress

Fae Kayarian is a poet and medical student who began as a scribe at Harvard Medical School. She has shared her experiences through poetry in the form of an autobiography titled “Journals of a Visitor” and several stand-alone poems. Her website contains eight poems ranging in topics in medicine from her point of view as a bystander and now a student.

Generally useful for close reading of poetry. Two poems – “The Color Blue” and “It’s been six years” could interest families of patients experiencing loss and dementia. Others would be beneficial for teaching physicians and other health professionals in mentor positions. Her poetry would serve as a reminder of what it’s like to be a student and the impact that medical educators have on the future of medicine as mentors.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End.

A contemplation of the limits of medical care through many specific stories of decision points about when to stop treatment in favor of palliative care. Gawande has been a physician for a long time and an activist/ writer on the side of “know when to say when” – i.e. just because medical technology exists to prolong life doesn’t mean that’s the best thing to do – for almost as long. He makes convincing cases for stopping expensive treatment and “giving life to days” more often than Hail Mary passes that might bring on the 2% chance of a cure.

The book is a readily accessibe read for many audiences and could be assigned in full or excerpted. It was also the subject of a PBS documentory that could be used to supplement class use and bring the text to life.

Penn State Collection of Graphic Medicine Narratives

Organized by each year the class has been taught, this is collection of graphic narratives illustrates issues medical students face with details of med school life: imposter syndrome, harsh criticism, feeling insecure vs thinking they can save a patient’s life if they go with their instincts, etc. Amazing range of writing and drawing styles, very candid, some quite powerful. Some use medical terminology beyond interest or understanding of lay reader.