Narrative Medicine Spring Basic Virtual Workshop

March 19 – 21, 2021

Inquire About the Waitlist!

Join us for our second virtual online workshop! 

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. Standard registration is now closed, but you can email above to require about the waitlist. 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 for the second time 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 5th, and registration ends on March 12th.

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.-5 p.m. (All times EDT) Our updated full schedule and outline of resources is listed below. For additional information, email Joseph Eveld at jhe2109@cumc.columbia.edu or call the Division of Narrative Medicine at 212-305-1952.

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 EDT):

Friday March 19^th

• 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 March 20^th

• 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 Breakout with Individual Faculty

Sunday March 21^st

• 9:30-11:00am: Small Group Seminars | Zoom Small Group Breakouts
• 1:00-2:30pm: Bearing Witness to Yourself in the Work | Deepthiman Gowda, MD, MPH, MS (live via Zoom)
• 3:30-5:00pm: Small Group Seminars | Zoom Small Group Breakouts
• 5:30-6:30pm: Concluding Faculty Q&A (Optional) | Live via Zoom with Narrative Medicine Faculty

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.