Events

Creative Medicine Series: Patients, Poems, Prerogatives - Creative Writing in a Medical Career
By Brian J. Zink
Professor and Chair, Department of Emergency Medicine
April 27, 2016
5:30 PM
Pembroke Hall, 305
172 Meeting Street
Providence

Visiting MFA Writer: Steve Langam
May 17-18, 2016

Steve Langan is a poet  (MFA Iowa Writers) and noted writing teacher from Omaha, Nebraska with a long history of working with physicians on writing projects.

He established and leads the Seven Doctors Projects, a Nebraska program that pairs physicians with writing mentors.

Our program will broken into three parts: (Steve will be around for 2 days)

1. Steve will give a talk and participate in a moderated discussion at the medical school on Tuesday evening, May 17. This event will be open to the Brown community and serve as an interdisciplinary conversation about creativity, writing and communication.
1. He'll  describe his ongoing work at Seven Doctors Project, including the publications of several of their members. I hope this will stimulate discussion on how we, as a department and an institution, can establish a writing program to help residents and faculty communicate effectively in different media forms.
2. We hope to hold ‘office hours’ for people who would like time to chat with Steve
3. Writing workshop Wednesday, May 18, 2pm-4pm
1. He'll begin with an interactive creative writing exercise called "Abstraction to Image." Participants will be put to work right away, pen in hand, translating abstraction into image and building a starting place for a poem. By moving through the exercise the group will talk how core principles of the poem--rhythm, surprise, establishing a "form," connecting to reader--are principles inherent in writing of all forms, including essays, non-fiction and short fiction. We'll also talk about how these skills are useful for effective 'short' writing, including blogs, op-eds, and yes, even Twitter posts.

Below are two links, one to Steve Langan's bio at Poetry Foundation and the other to my his bio for Seven Doctors Project.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/steve-langan

http://newriters.org/our-programs/seven-doctors-project/

Writing Short, Thinking Deep: A Workshop Series
Dates TBA
By Jay Baruch, MD

Words, carefully chosen, can convey great meaning. The hard part, of course, is deciding which words matter and why. The ability to write concisely, with clarity and maybe a dash of wit, begin with the clarity of your ideas. Digital forms of communication--from blog posts to 140 character Tweets--reward those who can communicate effectively in shorter forms. As more physicians engage with colleagues and the public through social media, an understanding of the elements of good short writing, and the opportunity to practice and refine these skills, emerge as necessary tools. The demands of the short form cultivates attention to details and stylistic choices that can be applied to any type of writing at any length. 

Objectives for this series:

1. Use the platform of writing short to establish a regular writing practice within the demands of competing academic, clinical and family demands.
2. Demonstrate an understanding of what make effective short writing and why
3. Produce writing of varying lengths for either public engagement or personal growth and reflection

Workshop #1: Writing Short--The 55 Word Story
How do you find time to write or develop creative ideas when you barely have time in your schedule to answer emails? In this session we’ll discuss the importance of constraints, and how we might use constraints to our advantage in our writing. Through the 55 Word story exercise (or essay), workshop participants will develop and refine a piece of writing. We’ll discuss elements of craft, address questions related to their writing process, address how these skills apply to their own writing  projects, and suggest methods for cultivating a writing practice within the constraints of their lives.

Workshop #2: Writing Shorter
What makes for an effective tweet? This session is focused on words and message, not the mechanics of Twitter. Rather, we’ll discuss  craft items such as balanced and unbalanced sentences, repetition, changing pace, parallelism, hitting your mark and other techniques to strengthen your Tweets. Of course, these formal elements work in longer forms of writing as well, from blog posts to academic writing. Department members active on Twitter will discuss successful experiences as well as cautionary tales.

Emergency Medicine Humanities Elective: Interventional Narrative in Emergency Medicine
Caring for the sick and injured is becoming an increasingly complex endeavor requiring more than clinical and technical expertise. It requires creativity, sensitivity and imagination. The sciences don’t address the big, human questions that arise when patients face suffering and death, or prepare physicians to examine their own values, frailties, and capacity for compassion and tolerance. The medical humanities provides tools for fostering critical thinking skills, encourages respect for different and differing opinions, nurtures passion and curiosity, and fosters cross disciplinary discourse.

The interdisciplinary nature of medical humanities, engaging in conversations with persons who possess different expertise, different knowledge and different approaches to knowing, provides opportunities for examination and insight unavailable elsewhere.

During this elective, residents will investigate alternative meanings, interpretations and purposes embedded in the term “medical humanities” and learn it as a tool for understanding and responding to the profound experiences of clinical medicine, illness and health.

1. Understand and analyze what is meant by medical humanities and the role of narrative in emergency medicine practice
2. Provide residents with experience in the artistic creative process, including writing, development and publishing of at least one piece of work
3. Build awareness in their own thinking patterns, personal biases and assumptions
4. Develop comfort with uncertainty and ambiguity in communication, prognosis and diagnosis

Past Events

Op-Ed Writing Workshop
September 2nd, 2015
By Anna Reisman, MD
The goal of the workshop is to get you started on writing an op-ed or opinion piece. We will talk about the definition and components of an effective op-ed and spend a little time on the nuts and bolts of efficient and concise writing. You will do some writing during the workshop and give feedback to one another. And we’ll talk about possible publication venues for your pieces.

Global Health + Design: ColaLife and Building Unlikely Alliances to Save Children's Lives
Dinner and talk with Rohit Ramchandani, MPH; Public Health Adviser and Principal Investigator, ColaLife
Wednesday, December 4th, 2013
Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Lecture Hall 170
222 Richmond Street
Providence, RI
6:00-7:30pm
Sponsored by the Division of International Medicine and the Program in Medical Humanities, Department of Emergency Medicine; Career Services, Rhode Island School of Design

Doctors's Stories: Shaping the Healthcare Narrative
by Maggie Kozol, MD
September 12, 2012
Co-sponsored with the Division of Women's Health in Emergency Care
View Poster

Creative Medicine Series

Artists and Scientists as Partners: Dance, Music and Neuroscience
with Julie Strandberg and Rachel Balaban, Artists and Scientists as Partners (ASaP)
November 7, 2012
Pembroke Hall 305
172 Meeting Street
5:30-7:00pm

See Creative Medicine Series for event archive.