Type of Course: Undergraduate

Accessible Narrative Medicine digital library

The Accessible Narrative Medicine digital library includes outlines for narrative medicine workshops, as well as "third objects" (poems, short essays, stories, images, items that can be the catalyst for conversation, reflection, and writing). The goal of the site is to encourage the practice of narrative medicine in a wide range of community settings by making available detailed workshop outlines and resources that can be adapted by community workshop facilitators for their particular audience and setting. The developers of the site believe that "narrative medicine workshops should be led by trusted members of a community. In order to create an inclusive safe space, the content and leadership of a workshop should reflect the lived experience of those attending." The outlines and materials focus on the health narratives of BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and persons living with disability. Registration is required to access the materials; once registered, site users can find workshops on core narrative medicine ideals, including attention, witness, and re-presentation. The library of third objects is searchable by topic and genre and includes not only written works but also images and art. The site has secured permission for use of narratives and many of the third objects include a bio for the author/artist, as well as a downloadable PDF of the object.

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.

Worlds Apart Facilitator’s Guide

This is a thorough facilitator’s guide on how to facilitate class discussions on the cross-cultural healthcare documentary Worlds Apart (a detailed summary can be found in the Search for Stories tab). In brief, Worlds Apart is a documentary split into four 10-15 minute sections that each focus on a different cross-cultural health experience, including a Muslim man’s journey with stomach cancer, a Lao woman with a hole in her heart, a Black man waiting for a kidney transplant, and a Puerto Rican woman with diabetes, hypertension, asthma and depression. This documentary showcases narratives that illuminate the limits of Western medicine and expand our ideas of how the American medical system can grow to be more inclusive, equitable, and sensitive. The facilitator's guide provides background on the filmmakers and their intentions. It includes suggestions for facilitators such as setting ground rules for discussion and asking students to jot down notes during the documentary. The four-part narrative-driven documentary is summarized, and then each section is broken down in great detail, so even someone who did not watch the film could understand the exact circumstances of each family and individual being featured. After each synopsis we also receive medical background information and a variety of discussion questions specifically tailored to different issues discussed in the stories. Each section has a separate “focus” also outlined, ranging from language barriers to explanatory modules to informed consent to racial/ethnic healthcare disparities to non-adherence to medications. This guide was created “to give health care professionals an engaging experience through which to explore ideas about cross-cultural issues in health care and to learn from the actual experiences of both patients and clinicians,” but could also easily be adapted to a university classroom setting to guide student discussions. The guide does not include any assignments, but any of the issues headlining the discussion topics could work well as research essay prompts.

He was not the first dead man I X-rayed

The author had this to say about the poem: “I have X-rayed thousands of people over thirty years, but this one still come backs to me. It’s the story I tell when people ask me for ‘hospital stories,’ so it’s no surprise that I eventually wrote the story in a poem. I can still so vividly see him and me alone in that cold room.” " Content warning : Gun violence, some graphic descriptions of bodily harm This is a short poem written from the perspective of the author as a X-ray technologist. It describes one particular experience he had caring for a man with a gunshot wound who dies during the treatment and the poem. Provides an opportunity to talk about death and the impact experiencing death may have on healthcare providers. The brevity and personal quality of this piece leaves room for students to interpret and discuss their own thoughts and reactions. There is a complex story in a brief poem, with lots to unpack, accessible to all audiences.

Teaching with “The Nocturnist”

Podcast series created by physician Emily Silverman that focuses on humanizing medical practice through healthcare workers' storytelling. Some topics: interview with author of a book on forced sterilization, "Black Voices in Healthcare" and "Post-Roe America". Episodes run 35-55 minutes; first 10-15 is story, the rest is wide-ranging interviews about (e.g.) why did you become a doctor? With related interview (see Farrell, 2022) could be used both to discuss storytelling as a way to address burnout, and to introduce oral history interviews.

In need of a prayer

Physician's story of visit to a suspected-COVID patient from early days of pandemic. Details the stress of not knowing how to protect herself, patients' isolation from his family, lack of treatment options, frantic pace of ER when infections and frequent deaths taxed medical professionals' emotional and physical stamina. Relates patients' conditions to her own father. Vivid starting point to discuss burnout (contrast with simple exhaustion and overwork), remind all audiences of what early months of uncontrollable COVID were like as memories fade. Ends by evoking a Celine Dion/Andrea Bocelli song about prayer that could contribute to discussion of music in healing.

Bullet journaling to save a life

An African American woman at a predominantly white institution is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Along with therapy, she works through her struggles with various mindfulness strategies, including a method described by Ryder Carroll as "bullet journaling." Her story encourages consideration of writing as a mental health practice, describes the author's adaptations of the bullet journal technique, and contains links to a TED talk and a book that go into more detail about this particular approach to intentionality. Useful starting point for talking about therapeutic (and general mental health maintenance) uses of writing. Glances of POC experiences in PWI's, though not much detail.

Listening to Patient Narratives Exercise: Anju’s Breast Cancer story

This is an outline for a class exercise utilizing a video from the Look Now Project. The short documentary tells Ajnu's story of treatment for breast cancer. The class exercise is part of a one-hour session entitled "Between the Lines," part of a training by the Northwest Narrative Medicine Collaborative in collaboration with Lewis & Clark College, which brought together undergraduate students, medical students, and medical professionals for a one-day workshop. In the "Between the Lines" session, we examined how clinical interactions are framed by medical scripts and encourage changing these frames to make room for patient stories. Then we engage in practicing listening closely to patient stories for what is said, how it is said, what is not said, and how our own experiences and identities shape what we hear.

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.

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.