Spring Narrative Medicine Basic Workshop
A Virtual Workshop and Online Course
April 8-10, 2022
Inquire About Our Next Workshop!
Registration for the spring workshop has ended, but you can click above to inquire abour our waitlist and the chance to be added to the workshop is space opens!
In light of the ongoing and necessary precautions and difficulties related to COVID-19, we will be extending the 25% discount on our usual tuition rates.
Rates and schedule listed below.
While we hope to be able to be together in person again for future workshops, we are excited to share this learning experience in a virtual format that brings together participants from all over the world for a weekend of intensive skill-building in narrative medicine practice. The narrative medicine faculty and program directors have worked to create an intimate and immersive experience, including lectures, small group work, literature, educational and networking resources, continuing education credits, and direct interaction with narrative medicine faculty. Our format combines live virtual sessions and asynchronous learning modalities to deliver an introduction to the field that provides the same learning, connection, and transformative experience as traditional in-person workshops, while taking into consideration the fatigue and burnout of demanding virtual schedules.
We are continuing to offer a 25% percent discount on our usual tuition rates with the understanding that time and resources have increased demands during these difficult few months, as well as an early bird special of $50 off the discounted tuition for those who sign up before March 25th. Registration will end on April 1st.
Our registration rates are listed below, as well as an outline for our virtual weekend schedule and preparatory asynchronous materials.
Workshop Description and Objectives
Narrative medicine recognizes the aesthetic capabilities of its practitioners as fundamental instruments necessary for effective care. Acts of perception and attention ignite our narrative practice. Seeing, hearing, sensing, taking in that which we witness begins the process toward healing, and narrative medicine training attunes us to those skills within ourselves. 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 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 experience plenary presentations by the founders of the Division of Narrative Medicine in both live and asynchronous formats, and will engage with faculty and each other live via Zoom for interactive presentations, Q&A, and small group work. 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 resources 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 live content will be held on Friday between 5:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Saturday between 9:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m., and Sunday 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. (All times Eastern Daylight Time) Our updated full schedule and outline of resources is listed below. For additional information, email Joseph Eveld at jhe2109@cumc.columbia.edu.
Narrative Medicine
The effective care of the sick requires deep and singular knowledge of the patient, competence, and commitment of the physician, and a sturdy bond of trust between the two. Despite the many sociocultural and professional factors that may divide doctors and patients, and the impact of political and economic pressures on health care as a whole, effective medical practice needs to replace hurried and impersonal care with careful listening and empathic attention. By fortifying clinical practice with the ability to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved by stories of illness, narrative training enables practitioners to comprehend patients’ experiences and to understand what they themselves undergo as clinicians. Professionalism, cultural competence, bioethical competence, interpersonal communication skills, self-reflective practice, and ability to work with health care teams can be strengthened by increasing narrative competence.
Many persons engaged in health care, including patients, providers, and literary scholars, are seeking fresh means to engage in powerful, person-centered care. Attentive listening, creative contact, singular accuracy, and personal fidelity are often missing from the routines of our practices. Among the many responses to the failures of our current health care system is Narrative Medicine. Developed at Columbia University in 2000, Narrative Medicine fortifies clinical practice with the ability to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved by stories of illness. We realize that the care of the sick unfolds in stories, and we recognize that the central event of health care occurs when the patient gives an account of self and the clinician skillfully receives it. Our experience and research have shown that the clinical routines and teaching methods of narrative medicine can transform practice and training. Time-tested teaching approaches can help participants to convey to their students the skills of empathic interviewing, reflective practice, narrative ethics, and self-awareness.
Work and study with us virtually for a weekend. Connect with colleagues from the world over to learn the narrative skills of close reading, attentive listening, and creative writing. Find out how your own imagination can reveal things you know unawares. Experience the deep bonds that can form among clinicians and those who care about health care in short periods of small group intensive narrative work. Recognize and be recognized as ones who have care within them.
Asynchronous Resources:
(available via University secured online platform several weeks before workshop dates; live faculty Q&A during the weekend follows the recorded lectures.)
- Orientation: Workshop Guidelines, Introductory information, and Welcome Board
- Participant Profile: Voluntary, Including Bio/Contact Info/Headshot
- Discussion/Resource Boards to connect across Professional Backgrounds
- Discussion Boards for Pre-Recorded and Resource Content
- Pre-readings and Course Literature
Recorded Lectures:
- "Writing in the Clinical Context and Beyond" by Nellie Hermann, MFA
- "Narrative Ethics: New Clinical Approaches" by Craig Irvine, PhD
Live Schedule (all times Eastern Daylight Time):
Friday April 8th
- 5:00-6:30pm: Narrative Medicine: Methods for Improving Clinical Effectiveness | Rita Charon, MD, PhD (live via Zoom)
- 7:00–8:00pm: Small Group Seminars | Zoom Small Group Breakouts
Saturday April 9th
- 9:30-11:00am: Small Group Seminars | Zoom Small Group Breakouts
- 1:00-2:30pm: Reconceptualizing Empathy | Maura Spiegel, PhD (live via Zoom)
- 3:30-5:00pm: Small Group Seminars | Zoom Small Group Breakouts
- 5:30-6:30pm: Drop-In Faculty Q&A for Recorded Lectures (Optional) | Zoom with Nellie Hermann and Craig Irvine
Sunday April 10th
- 9:30-11:00am: Small Group Seminars | Zoom Small Group Breakouts
- 12:30-2:00pm: Bearing Witness to Yourself in the Work | Deepthiman Gowda, MD, MPH, MS (live via Zoom)
- 2:30-3:00pm: Small Group Wrap-Up & Farewell | Zoom Small Group Breakouts
- 3:00-4:00pm: Weekend Wrap-Up | Everyone Together on Zoom
Audience
We invite nurses, physicians, physician assistants, dentists, chaplains, social workers, therapists, public health professionals and other clinicians, as well as writers, academics, scholars, and all those interested in the intersection of narrative and medicine to join us. By combining these groups of participants, we can all learn how to unify what are sometimes divided efforts in patient care, integrating the ethical awareness and sensibility with the clinical recognition that can ensue.
Faculty
Rita Charon, MD, PhD
- Professor and Chair of the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics
Professor of Medicine at Columbia, narratologist and Jamesian, Executive Director of the Division of Narrative Medicine, author of Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness and co-auther of The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine.
Nellie Hermann, MFA
- Lecturer in Medical Humanities and Ethics at the Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons
Creative Director of Narrative Medicine, novelist, architect of Columbia’s faculty development in writing for clinicians, author of The Cure for Grief and The Season of Migration, and co-auther of The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine.
Craig Irvine, PhD
- Co-Director and Lecturer in Narrative Medicine at Columbia
Founding Director of Narrative Medicine at Columbia, phenomenologist, and memoirist, author of “The Other Side of Silence: Levinas, Medicine, and Literature.”
Maura Spiegel, PhD
- Senior Lecturer in the English and Comparative Literature Department and Co-Director of Narrative Medicine at Columbia
Professor of English at Columbia, Founding Director of Narrative Medicine at Columbia, Victorianist and cinema scholar, editor of The Grim Reader and author of the recently released biography of film director Sidney Lumet titled Sidney Lumet: A Life, and co-author of The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine.
Deepthiman Gowda, MD, MPH, MS
- Assistant Dean for Medical Education at Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine and Clinical Director of Narrative Medicine at Columbia
The first Assistant Dean for Medical Education at the newly founded Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, and Director of Clinical Practice of Narrative Medicine. Dr. Gowda is a general internist, photographer, and teacher/researcher in the teaching of visual arts in health care settings. He is also a Macy Foundation Faculty Scholar.
Comments from Recent Participants
I was an absolute novice when I arrived at the basic workshop that Friday afternoon. I had never written a thing. I didn’t even know what a prompt was. But after the small group sessions and the other exercises were complete, narrative upon narrative began to percolate to the surface. Two days after that session I wrote my first contemporaneous narrative and I haven’t stopped writing since. There were many superb writers in my small group. But I never felt that the sessions were a competition. They were about each one of us being a little bit better at telling the story then we were before the session started. This is the gift of the Columbia Narrative Medicine faculty – helping each be better, feeling free to take risks, to try things out, and understanding the value and beauty of close, critical reading colleagues.
Andre Lijoi, MD
Associate Program Director WellSpan York Hospital Family Medicine Program/Clinical Associate Professor, Penn State University School of Medicine
I am seeing more the value of narrative medicine–bringing us beyond the superficial to appreciating more the richness and complexity of our lives
Tom McNeil, Social Worker
Cape Breton Cancer Centre, Nova Scotia, Canada
I wish I could attend a workshop every few months. There’s something about having a community of practice that replenishes and inspires. The workshop made me more confident to move forward with [my narrative] project: Why not me? Why not now?
Kathy Kirkland, Palliative Care Physician
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Hanover, NH, USA
Participants Will:
- Develop the narrative competence to nourish empathic doctor-patient relationships
- Learn narrative communication strategies for patient-centered and life-framed practice
- Build habits of reflective practice that enhance professionalism and nurture clinical communities
- Acquire pedagogic skills to teach methods of narrative medicine
- Replace isolation with affiliation, cultivate enduring collegial alliances, and reveal meaning in clinical practice
Tuition
- $750 for participants with income over $100,000/year (Marked down 25% from $1000 and can be combined with our $50 Early Bird Discount)
- $637 for income between $45,000 and $100,000/year (Marked down 25% from $850 and can be combined with our $50 Early Bird Discount)
- $375 for income under $45,000/year (Marked down 25% from $500 and can be combined with our $50 Early Bird Discount)
Tuition includes access to all live and asynchronous content, as well as literature and pre-readings.
Discounts for Cohorts
Based on our experience that cohorts of participants from an institution are better able to continue their narrative learning and to ignite narrative projects at their home institution, we now offer a discount of $50 on the tuition for each individual who attends with a cohort of two or more. If you plan to enroll with a cohort, reach out to Joseph Eveld at jhe2109@cumc.columbia.edu for more information on how to register for the discount.
Continuing Education Credits
AMA Continuing Medical Education
The Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons designates this live activity for up to 13.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
International activities for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
Physicians may earn AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ for participation in some international activities. As of this writing, the AMA has agreements with the European Union of Medical Specialists and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Information about the different ways to earn AMA PRA credit through international activities can be found on the AMA website at www.ama-assn.org/go/internationalcme
Continuing Dental Education
Columbia University College of Dental Medicine is an ADA CERP recognized provider 11/2017-12/2021. ADA CERP is a service of the American Dental Association to assist dental professionals in identifying quality providers of continuing dental education. ADA CERP does not approve or endorse individual courses or instructors; nor does it imply acceptance of credit hours by boards of dentistry. Concerns or complaints about a CE provider may be directed to the provider or to ADA CERP at www.ada.org/goto/cerp.
Participants: Continuing Education credits awarded for participation in the CE activity may not apply toward license renewal in all states. It is the responsibility of each participant to verify the requirements of his/her licensing board(s) and to report credits to the appropriate authority
Continuing Nursing Education Credits
Columbia University School of Nursing is accredited as a provider of continuing nursing education by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation. The Columbia University School of Nursing designates this live activity for a maximum of 13.5 CNE credit hours. Nurses should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
Disabilities
Columbia University makes every effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities. If you require disability accommodations to for this event, please contact the Office of Disability Services at 212-854-2388 or disability@columbia.edu at least 10 days in advance of the event. We will do our best to arrange accommodations received after this deadline but cannot guarantee them.
Share This Workshop
Narrative Medicine Spring Virtual Basic Workshop, April 8-10, 2022: #springNMworkshop
Follow Our Past Workshops
The Need for Narrative: Grappling and Reckoning with These Times, October 22-24, 2021: #fallNMworkshop #NeedForNarrative
Narrative Medicine Spring Virtual Basic Workshop, March 19-21, 2021: #springNMworkshop
Narrative Medicine & The Creative Impulse, October 23-25th 2020: #NMcreativeimpulse
Basic Workshop: October 11-13, 2019: #fallNMworkshop
Burnout in Healthcare: The Need for Narrative, March 8-10, 2019: #springNMworkshop #againstburnout
Basic Workshop: October 12-14, 2018: #fallNMworkshop
Narrative Palliative Care March 23-25, 2018: #palliativecarenmworkshop
Basic Workshop: November 10-12,2017: #fallNMworkshop
Basic Workshop: October 28 – 30, 2016 &October 16 – 18, 2015: #fallNMworkshop
Race | Violence | Justice: The Need for Narrative, April 7 – 9, 2017: #SocialJustice2017
Basic Workshop, A Call to Ethics: April 15 – 17, 2016: #NarrativeEthics2016
Narrative Medicine Summer Institute: June 6 – 10, 2016: #NMedInstitute2016
Advanced Workshop: June 23 – 26, 2016: #advancedNMworkshop