For our April Narrative Medicine Rounds, we welcome cartoonist Liana Finck, whose work appears regularly in the New Yorker and on her Instagram feed. Her most recent publications include a graphic novel entitled Passing for Human, and the cartoon collection Excuse Me: Cartoons, Complaints and Notes to Self.

In a review of Passing for Human in The Guardian, writer Rachel Cooke points out: “There is a resonant truth at the heart of this book, and it soars above everything else, however distracting; it has to do with life, and all the loneliness it involves.” About Finck’s graphic novel, Vogue writer Julia Felsenthal said in a profile: “Drill down through its many layers, and Passing For Human seems fundamentally to be about the tension between eccentricity and assimilation, about the exhausting experience of constantly calibrating oneself against some external measure of normal (‘an exploration,’ says Finck, ‘of what it means to feel weird, rather than to be weird.’) It's also a bildungsroman about an artist trying to understand her lifelong compulsion to make art.’’

Liana Finck is a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and a Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists. She has had artist residencies with the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Tablet magazine. Her first book, A Bintel Brief, was published in 2014.
Photo by Jorge Colombo

Early Bird Registration of $50 off tuition through March 20!

Standard Registration Open through April 6th, space permitting.

NARRATIVE MEDICINE & THE CREATIVE IMPULSE
Narrative Medicine is, at its core, a creative act. Acts of perception and attention ignite our narrative practice. Seeing, hearing, sensing, taking in that which we witness begins the process toward healing, and creative thinking fostered by narrative medicine training attunes us to those skills within ourselves. Creative Director of Narrative Medicine novelist Nellie Hermann has been our leader and inspiration in locating creativity at the heart of what we do.

The creativity of narrative medicine goes far beyond a reliance on fiction and film as convenient “case histories” of patients, or paintings as observable depictions of diseased bodies, or musical compositions as evidence of a composer’s psychopathology. Instead, narrative medicine recognizes the aesthetic capabilities of its practitioners as fundamental instruments necessary for effective care. We grow toward our own powers to attend to our patients through the schooled avenues of close reading, deep listening, and concentrated witnessing of works of art.

This workshop features world-renowned writers, artists, cinema scholars, and musicians who can reveal to us how to get the news from stories, images, and sounds. Join us in engaging interactions with works of art in varied forms and genres. Join us too in the creation of art—not only for the pleasure this brings but for the community-building that cannot but follow from it. Narrative medicine is a radical practice with art and beauty at its center, not to distract us from the suffering we face but to make the suffering visible, audible, and palpable so as to ease it.

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION & OBJECTIVES
This intensive workshop will offer rigorous skill-building in narrative competence, and provides an intensive introductory experience to the methods and skills of narrative medicine. These practices are then applicable to unlimited clinical and non-clinical settings. Participants will gather for plenary presentations by the founders of the Division of Narrative Medicine alternating with small-group seminars and guest lectures by Robert O’Meally and Rika Burnham. Participants will learn effective techniques for attentive listening, adopting others’ perspectives, accurate representation, and reflective reasoning. Plenary presentations by faculty open up themes of how stories and art work, exploring concepts such as creativity, ethics, bearing witness, and empathy, while the small groups practice rigorous skills in close reading, creative writing, and responding to the writings of others. Close reading is an integral part of the workshop as is short prompted writing and discussion. Participants will gain access to our online resource page prior to the start of the workshop where all information necessary to prepare for the weekend is provided, including literary texts, film, visual art and seminar articles in the field of narrative medicine by leading educators.

The Workshop will be held on Friday 1pm-7:30pm, Saturday 8:30am-4:45pm, and Sunday 8:30am-4:00pm with full schedule below. For additional information, email Joseph Eveld at jhe2109@cumc.columbia.edu or call the Division of Narrative Medicine at 212-305-1952.

TUITION
$1000 for participants with income over $100,000/year
$850 for income between $45,000 and $100,000/year
$500 for income under $45,000/year
(Tuition includes meals during workshop hours, and select readings). Participants are responsible for their own travel and accommodations.

DISCOUNTS FOR COHORTS
We also offer a discount of $100 on the tuition for each individual who attends within a cohort of two or more.If you plan to come with a cohort, reach out to Joseph Eveld at jhe2109@cumc.columbia.edu for more information on how to register for the discount.

We are back for Spring 2020!

Join Butler Studio's new community project centered on collaborative mapping for humanitarian aid.

Using data from the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap US Tasking Manager, we will edit high-priority maps to address local development challenges and aid disaster response.

Precision Medicine & Society: International Perspectives

8:15a-9:00a - Registration and Breakfast

9:00a-10:30a

Panel: Impact on Global Health Disparities and Public Health

Donna Dickenson, Birkbeck College, London

Sandro Galea, Boston University

10:30a-10:45a - Break

10:30a-12:45p

Panel: Rolling Out Precision Medicine Around the World

China – Haidan Chen, Peking University

Denmark – Katharina Eva O’Cathaoir, University of Copenhagen

Brazil – Jorge Alberto Bernstein Iriart, Instituto de Saúde Coletiva, Universidade Federal da Bahia

12:45p-1:45p - Lunch

1:45p-3:45p

Panel: International Ethical, Regulatory and Economic Issues in Precision Medicine

Ethics – Barbara Prainsack, King's College London

Regulation – Adrian Thorogood, McGill University

Economics – Patricia Danzon, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania