KEY ELEMENTS OF THE HEALTH AND HUMANITIES PROGRAM:
Interdisciplinary Lunch and Learns: We now have formalized monthly “Narrative and Humanities” lunchtime seminars, which are open to all and have covered topics like “Mindfulness in the Hospital Setting”, the graphic novel as a teaching tool, “An Introduction to Disability Studies” and “Poisons in Opera”. These have been well attended by faculty and students from both clinical and humanities disciplines and are held either at Mount Sinai Hospital or The Jackman Humanities Institute.
Narrative-Based Initiatives: Our Program has become a point of excellence in the field of Narratology and Narrative-based Medicine. We have offered supervision, faculty training, electives and observerships to both clinicians and humanities scholars. More recent developments have been the emergence of clinical therapeutic writing models for patients living with chronic illness and narrative-based approaches to Consultation-Liaison and Crisis Care. We have consulted to The Faculty of Medicine on establishing the Portfolio Course in the undergraduate medical curriculum and have conducted research on student reflective capacity.