Category: Workshop

Advanced Creative and Reflective Writing Workshop for Health Practitioners

Advanced Creative and Reflective Writing Workshop for Health Practitioners 🗓

Posted on by Allan Peterkin

Learners from ALL clinical, humanities, social sciences  and arts-based disciplines are welcome to register.

Advanced Creative and Reflective Writing Workshop for Health Practitioners

November – December 2022

This four-session series is designed for writers with some experience seeking to improve their creative and reflective writing skills. Each session will focus on a particular literary genre (e.g. memoir, fiction, poetry) and feature brief lecture, small group discussion of published work, and an ongoing conversation about themes and questions in creative and reflective writing within the health humanities. Activities and exercises in every session will offer participants a space to write, read, try out new methods and approaches for prose and poetry, give each other feedback, and share and hone work with peers in a safe and encouraging environment. Offered via Zoom, sessions last 2.5 hours and take place every two weeks; in between, an online forum will allow for continued collaboration and connection.

More Information

Register

Let CPD help you to create an engaging digital conference experience that goes beyond a typical webinar. Contact me to learn more.

THE NARRATIVE-BASED MEDICINE LAB 

Continuing Professional Development
Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
500 University Avenue, 6th floor, Toronto, ON, M5G 1V7
temertymedicine.utoronto.ca | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | LinkedIn

I Start The Day… a writing & reflection session 

I Start The Day… a writing & reflection session  🗓

Posted on by Allan Peterkin

WORKSHOPS WITH RONNA BLOOM,
Poet-in-Residence for the Progam in Health, Arts and Humanities

I Start The Day…
a writing & reflection session 
on vocation, purpose, intention, and burnout in the lives of health care workers

How do you start the day? Trepidation? Curiosity? This workshop offers an opportunity to expore and express what it’s like to engage purposefully and with intention in your work as a health care professional considering the constraints of the health care system and the world as it is. We will look at the impact on your health, and the questions of ‘how we do it’ within the context of a grounding in poetry and writing.

Goals
:

*Learn five rules for writing that can be used to reflect on one’s work, relationships, and life
*Engage with poetry as a tool for understanding and expressing challenges
.
*Increase awareness of the impact of the professional on the personal, and the personal on the professional
.
*Explore poetry and writing as practices of self-care

.

Sponsored by the Health, Arts and Humanities Programme and the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto

Tuesday November 15, 2022 6PM-7:39PM

On Zoom

Register here

Ronna Bloom is the author of six books of poetry. Her poems have been recorded by the CNIB and translated into Spanish, Bangla, and Chinese. She has collaborated with health care professionals, filmmakers, academics, students, spiritual leaders, and architects. A frequent guest in the faculties of Nursing, Medicine, Public Health, as well at teaching hospitals, she brings 25 years of psychotherapy practice to her work as a poet and facilitator.

Ronna developed the first Poet in Residence program at Sinai Health which ran from 2012-2019 and is Poet in Residence in the Health, Arts and Humanities Programme. Her “Spontaneous Poetry Booth” and “RX for Poetry” have been featured in hospitals and fundraisers in Canada and abroad. Her new book, A Possible Trust:The Poetry of Ronna Bloom, Selected with an Introduction by Phil Hall, will be published by Wilfred Laurier University Press in 2023. ronnabloom.com

 

Awake at Work: Writing into Presence

Awake at Work: Writing into Presence 🗓

Posted on by hahuoft

WORKSHOPS WITH RONNA BLOOM,
Poet-in-Residence for the Program in Health, Arts and Humanities

Awake at Work: Writing into Presence

for Residents, Students, Physicians, Nurses and Other Health Care Professionals

In this session, use writing to explore how simply showing up and attending to your own experience is the starting point for attending to others. Through guided exercises, you’ll have the opportunity to notice your personal, professional, and physical responses –– whether you’re at a desk, in the community, clinic or a hospital room –– and to write about them in a reflective, open, non-evaluative way. See how being awake to yourself might help you be awake at work. No experience is necessary.

Goals
:

*Learn five rules for writing that can be used to reflect on one’s work, relationships, and life

*Engage with poetry as a tool for understanding and expressing challenges
.

*Increase awareness of the impact of the professional on the personal, and the personal on the professional
.

*Explore poetry and writing as practices of self-care

.

Sponsored by the Health, Arts and Humanities Programme and the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto 

Thursday October 13, 2022, 6PM-7:30PM

On Zoom

Register here.

Ronna Bloom is the author of six books of poetry. Her poems have been recorded by the CNIB and translated into Spanish, Bangla, and Chinese. She has collaborated with health care professionals, filmmakers, academics, students, spiritual leaders, and architects. A frequent guest in the faculties of Nursing, Medicine, Public Health, as well at teaching hospitals, she brings 25 years of psychotherapy practice to her work as a poet and facilitator.

Ronna developed the first Poet in Residence program at Sinai Health which ran from 2012-2019 and is Poet in Residence in the Health, Arts and Humanities Programme. Her “Spontaneous Poetry Booth” and “RX for Poetry” have been featured in hospitals and fundraisers in Canada and abroad.

Her new book, A Possible Trust: The Poetry of Ronna Bloom, Selected with an Introduction by Phil Hall, will be published by Wilfred Laurier University Press in 2023. ronnabloom.com 

ARTICULATING THE BODY THROUGH POETRY May 10th

ARTICULATING THE BODY THROUGH POETRY May 10th 🗓

Posted on by Allan Peterkin

Open to UofT students, faculty and alumni

Event: Articulating the Body: Ekphrasis at the Maude Abbott Museum (Digital Experience) 

Date: May 10. 7 pm-9pm

Sponsors: Poetry Matters of McGill University; Maude Abbott Medical Museum; University of Toronto  Program In Health, Arts and Humanities

Description: In this virtual workshop open only to University of Toronto students, faculty, and alumni, workshop leader Dr. Shane Neilson will take you through several ekphrastic exercises that will be both individual and collaborative. The workshop is deliberately constructed to start slow, at the descriptive level, and it carefully builds in a layered fashion. The body becomes animated and then begins developing links to other bodies and structures. The goal is to refine creative writing techniques. The special aspect to this workshop is that the creative materials used for ekphrasis come from the important legacy of the legendary figure of Dr. Maude Abbott who, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia, “paved the way for women in medicine” and who, based on her work as a pathologist, “laid the foundation for modern heart surgery.” Dr. Rick Fraser, director of the Maude Abbott Medical Museum and an anatomic pathologist himself, will serve as the evening’s “living exhibit.”

Size Limit: 20, so sign up now!

Link for Sign Up: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/articulating-the-body-tickets-309927831487

Scars, X Rays, Tattoos and Other Stories of the Body 2.0

Scars, X Rays, Tattoos and Other Stories of the Body 2.0 🗓

Posted on by Allan Peterkin

Scars, X Rays, Tattoos and Other Stories of the Body 2.0  

A writing workshop for health care students and professionals

Each practitioner brings a different lens to their patient or client: the word ‘tattoo’ means one thing to the dermatologist and another thing to the radiologist. The surgeon sees a scar, while psychiatrists see scars of a different sort. One listens to the lungs, another the heart. Yet it’s one person. Using poetry and creative writing, we’ll have a chance to express the unique way we each see the person before us. Then come together as a group to see the person again, through all the lenses we bring.

Why 2.0? Last season, in “Scars, Tattoos and Other Stories of the Body” we reflected on the stories our own bodies tell. In 2.0, we’ll look at how we respond as health care professionals to the body of the person before us. It is not necessary to have attended the first one; no experience required.

Learning Objectives:

1.  Learn five rules for writing that can be used to reflect on work, relationships, and life

2.  Increase awareness of the possible impact of your specialization on the person you are seeing.

3.  Explore poetry and writing as practices of self-care

Thursday April 28, 2021  5:30PM-7PM
On Zoom. You will receive a link when you register.

Facilitator: Ronna Bloom
Ronna Bloom is a teacher and author of 6 books of poetry. Her most recent book, The More, was published by Pedlar Press in 2017 and long listed for the City of Toronto Book Award. Her poems have been recorded by the CNIB and translated into Spanish, Bangla, and Chinese. She has collaborated with health care professionals, filmmakers, spiritual leaders, conservationists and architects. A frequent guest in the faculties of Nursing, Medicine, Public Health, as well at teaching hospitals, she brings 25 years of psychotherapy practice to her work as a poet and facilitator.

Ronna developed the first Poet in Residence program at Sinai Health which ran from 2012-2019. She is currently Poet in Community to the University of Toronto and Poet in Residence in the Health, Arts and Humanities Programme. Her “Spontaneous Poetry Booth” and “RX for Poetry” have been featured in hospitals and fundraisers in Canada and abroad. Her chapbook, Who is your mercy contact? was published in March.

Ronna Bloom, M.ED
Poet in Residence, HAH, University of Toronto

Poet in Community, University of Toronto
www.ronnabloom.com

Open to all U of T Medical Students, Residents, Physicians and Learners from other disciplines. Register here.

This session is sponsored by the program for Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

Plagues Plays Course

Plagues Plays Course 🗓

Posted on by Allan Peterkin

PLAGUE PLAYS READERS THEATRE: NEW DATES!

A FEW SPOTS ARE AVAILABLE IN THIS THEATRE WORKSHOP

Thank you again for your interest in our Reader’s Theatre course. We are planning on hosting the course Monday April 4 and 25th at 600-800pm

We will be reading The Plague, Neil Bartlett’s theatrical adaptation of the novel by The Plague by Camus.

If you are interested please register here:

https://forms.gle/WUdu5D1heejsHHn7A

A link for the on line Readers Theatre will be sent to you!

OUTLINE:

April 4th 6-7:30pm

We will read Scenes 1-11 of the play together. No preparation is required.

But if you wish to read the Camus text – you can try to pre-read parts 1, 2 & 3

April 25th 6-7:30pm

We will read Scenes 12-18 and the final chorus together. Again, no preparation is needed.

The optional Camus text for this section is Part 4 &5 of The Plague.

We will share other readings and materials with the registration link.

The Bartlett play can be ordered on Amazon.ca:
https://www.amazon.ca/Plague-after-Peste-Albert-Camus/dp/1786821923/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1VU0EL62W8BTA&keywords=The+plague+Neil+bartlett&qid=1647838986&sprefix=the+plague+neil+bartlett%2Caps%2C58&sr=8-1

The Plague (after La Peste) : Camus, Albert, Bartlett, Neil: Amazon.ca: Books
www.amazon.ca

For the Camus test – we recommend the Vintage edition translated by Stuart Gilbert. A kindle version is available.
https://www.amazon.ca/Plague-Albert-Camus/dp/0679720219/ref=sr_1_2?crid=39ECVVJAUKQXI&keywords=CAMUS+the+plague+vintage&qid=1647839446&sprefix=camus+the+plague+vintage%2Caps%2C65&sr=8-2

The Plague: Camus, Albert: 9780679720218: Books – Amazon.ca
www.amazon.ca

Looking forward to seeing you!

 

FURTHER DETAILS:

OPEN TO STUDENTS FROM ALL CLINICAL DISCIPLINES

Sent on behalf of Dr Suvendrini Lena: Playwright in Residence, the Program In Health, Arts and Humanities (University of Toronto)

WWW.HEALTH-HUMANITIES.COM

 

Plague Plays

If you are looking for a place to put your thoughts about the life we are living in medicine now join me for an informal reader’s theatre, called Plague Plays. Reader’s Theatre is a great way to interact with one another, a key text of our times, and themes raised therein. No pre-work is required although options will be provided.

We’ll have the option to read the original version of Camus’s The Plague side by side with a faithful dramatic rendering by the British Playwright Neil Bartlett. We’ll read the dramatic version on zoom together over four sessions.

We’ll try to strike a balance between literary and personal engagement with the text. In chaotic times, texts such as this can help us to find focus, meaning and respite.

We will offer optional writing prompts & exercises for those who are interested.

Materials (please obtain your own copy)

  1. Camus, The Plague. Stuart Gilbert Trans. Vintage International Edition.
  2. Neil Bartlett, The Plague adaptation for the stage. Oberon Books London 2017.

Please let us know if you have difficulty obtaining the materials.

Suvendrini Lena, MD MPH FRCPC Neurology CSCN EEG
Katie van Kampen, MS2, BHSc

Resilience in Practice - Starting March 12

Resilience in Practice – Starting March 12 🗓

Posted on by Allan Peterkin

A Narrative-based Exploration of Resilience from the CPD

Resilience in Practice – Starting March 12

There are limited spots available for “Resilience in Practice” – a new workshop series designed to explore and understand personal and professional resiliency using narrative-based medicine approaches. This series will take place over five sessions from 10am – 12pm on Saturday mornings from March 12 – July 9, 2022.

Using the work (and wisdom) of five contemporary clinician writers, learners will:

  • Explore clinician memoirs as a foundation for understanding different experiences of resilience.
  • Enhance their understanding of personal and professional resiliency.
  • Deepen their skills as close readers, writers and listeners through practical exercises.

Book excerpts and themes will be used as a springboard for reflections and writing in each session. Come to deepen your learning, enhance your creativity, or find inspiration. Note: The memoirs are a resource to explore these themes and pre-reading is not required.

The group is facilitated by Karen Gold, a narrative medicine facilitator, social worker, and educator.

See the program website for complete details.

Registration link: https://facmed.registration.med.utoronto.ca/portal/events/reg/participantTypeSelection.do?method=load&entityId=3000060&utm_source=Discover&utm_medium=CPD+Website&utm_campaign=CPD+Events+Page

If anyone requires registration assistance, they should email: facmed.registration@utoronto.ca

Continuing Professional Development
Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
500 University Avenue, 6th floor, Toronto, ON, M5G 1V7
416-978-2719 | monica.cribari@utoronto.ca
postmd.utoronto.ca | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | LinkedIn

MINDFULNESS TRAINING FOR U Toronto RESIDENTS AND FELLOWS

MINDFULNESS TRAINING FOR U Toronto RESIDENTS AND FELLOWS 🗓

Posted on by Allan Peterkin

For Residents and Fellows at the University of Toronto – SPOTS ARE LIMITED REGISTER NOW !
sponsored by WWW.HEALTH-HUMANITIES.COM

——————

Emotion-Focused Mindfulness Wellness Training

Rodelyn Wisco, MSW, RSW

Format:                                              Biweekly online sessions

Target Audience:                               Post-MD, Residents and Fellows, U of T

Dates:                                                Mar 28, Apr 11, and Apr 25, 2022

Times:                                                Monday evenings, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Number of sessions:                          3

Length of sessions:                            2 hours

Maximum number of participants:     10 (Spots offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Make sure you can commit to ALL 3 sessions before registering)

ZOOM DETAILS TO FOLLOW

To Register, contact :
rodelynwiscomsw@gmail.com

Emotion-Focused Mindfulness (EFM) wellness training cultivates gentle curiosity and self-compassion to better navigate issues and core concerns and develop more genuine ways of relating to oneself, others, and the world. Sessions include talks, meditation, journaling, and sharing, reflecting on and exploring meditation experience. Participation involves a willingness to share one’s own difficult emotions and thoughts with colleagues in a safe group setting.

In EFM, the facilitator introduces and models for participants how to create a safe space for inner work by cultivating self-compassionate awareness. Emotional processing is facilitated by orienting people to attend to their bodies to become aware of, allow, experience, accept, and transform their emotional experience, both in meditation, and afterwards in further exploration with the facilitator. Emotional processing is a combination of attending inwardly to and reflecting on one’s bodily-felt experience and emotions, to address and resolve inner conflicts and core issues, and better navigate life situations. After meditation, participants journal what they recall happened in meditation to better acknowledge and deepen their emotional experience. In addition, participants take turns describing their meditation experience, with the facilitator listening to their whole meditation narrative and then responding to whatever seems most alive and poignant in the moment, and empathically exploring this with them.

Learning goals:                                            

  • Develop a more genuine relationship with self and others, deepening therapeutic presence with patients
  • Cultivate compassion, empathy and responsiveness toward your own and others’ experience
  • Learn calming, grounding and self-soothing techniques
  • Develop own meditation practice at home
  • Integrate empirically-based Emotion-Focused Therapy experiential and emotional processing into meditation and life

Rodelyn Wisco, MSW, RSW, is a Mindfulness and Wellness Clinical Educator for the Health Arts and Humanities Program, University of Toronto.  She works closely with Bill Gayner, MSW, RSW, the developer of Emotion-Focused Mindfulness Therapy (EFMT), was the Principal Investigator for a study determining the feasibility of EFMT with people living with anxiety and depression, and has presented locally and internationally on EFMT.  Rodelyn supports health care professionals with the development of their mindfulness practices and has cultivated her meditation practice for close to thirty years.

Rodelyn is a Registered Social Worker, Psychotherapist, in private practice who provides individual Emotion-Focused Therapy and EFMT, Emotion-Focused Family therapy, and EFMT professional training. For 20 years, she worked in multiple health care settings, including family medicine, ambulatory psychiatry, and children’s mental health to support the mental health of children, families, and adults.  She also trained family medicine and psychiatric residents for 10 years first at St. Joseph’s Health Centre and then at Mount Sinai Hospital in communication skills, counselling skills, and behavioural strategies.

Rodelyn Wisco, MSW, RSW
rodelynwiscomsw@gmail.com

Be Good to Yourself, Whoever You Are

Be Good to Yourself, Whoever You Are 🗓

Posted on by Allan Peterkin

As part of The Winter Solstice Series
curated by Hard Feelings, I will be offering the workshop

Be Good to Yourself, Whoever You Are

Date and time

Tue, March 1, 2022, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM EST

Often in work, and in life, energy moves towards projects and people but there’s little left for your own restoration. In this workshop, through the use of poems and prompts, you will be nudged into writing and reflecting on what sustains you, what you love and what you need. Take this time for yourself as a flicker of possibility of how you might take time for yourself in general.

This session is part of the Winter Solace FREE online series. For individuals who are feeling isolated, struggling to find supports, and interested in developing new ways of coping.

CRITERIA FOR PARTICIPATION:

• Self-identify as financially vulnerable

• In need of mental health and/or well being supports

• Live in the GTA

• Ages 18+

Register Here.

For info on other sessions in the series, contact Kate Scowen

Two Poetry Workshops and a poem

Two Poetry Workshops and a poem

Posted on by Allan Peterkin

Hello, welcome,

I have two workshops to share with you. And a poem.
These offerings come with my best wishes
for your health and strength.

Ronna

***

Postcards from the Edge:
Addressing Compassion/Covid Fatigue in Note Form
A workshop for medical students, physicians, residents, and other health practitioners.

Perhaps you are too overwhelmed to read this. Let’s be brief: this workshop will address the impacts on you –physical, emotional, professional — of living through Covid, while caring for human suffering. In notes. A creative writing workshop. With other hesitant people. Using poems as guides. Have a rest; write something. No experience necessary.

Sponsored by The Temerty Faculty of Medicine at University of Toronto.
February 15, 5:30PM-7PM
Register here

***

As part of The Winter Solstice Series
curated by Hard Feelings, I will be offering the workshop

Be Good to Yourself, Whoever You Are

Often in work, and in life, energy moves towards projects and people but there’s little left for your own restoration. In this workshop, through the use of poems and prompts, you will be nudged into writing and reflecting on what sustains you, what you love and what you need. Take this time for yourself as a flicker of possibility of how you might take time for yourself in general.

This session is part of the Winter Solace FREE online series. For individuals who are feeling isolated, struggling to find supports, and interested in developing new ways of coping.

CRITERIA FOR PARTICIPATION:

• Self-identify as financially vulnerable

• In need of mental health and/or well being supports

• Live in the GTA

• Ages 18+

Register Here.

For info on other sessions in the series, contact Kate Scowen

***

Lastly, here’s a new poem.
“An Excruciating Blue Day” was published in The Malahat Review

***
Thanks for taking the time.
ronna
Postcards from the Edge: Addressing Compassion/Covid Fatigue in Note Form

Postcards from the Edge: Addressing Compassion/Covid Fatigue in Note Form 🗓

Posted on by Allan Peterkin

A workshop for Medical Students, Residents and Health Care Professionals

Postcards from the Edge: Addressing Compassion/Covid Fatigue in Note Form

Perhaps you are too overwhelmed to read this. Let’s be brief: this workshop will address the impacts on you — physical, emotional, professional — of living through Covid while caring for human suffering. In notes. A creative writing workshop. With other hesitant people. Using poems as guides. Have a rest; write something. No experience necessary.

Goals
— Learn five rules for writing that can be used to reflect on one’s work, relationships, and life
— Engage with poetry as a tool for understanding and expressing challenges
— Increase awareness of the impact of the professional on the personal, and the personal on the professional
— Explore poetry and writing as practices of self-care

Time and place: 
Tuesday February 15, 5:30PM-7PM,  You will receive a zoom link when you register. 

Workshop leader: 
Ronna Bloom is a poet and teacher. Her most recent book, The More, was long listed for the City of Toronto Book Award. Her poems have been recorded by the CNIB and translated into Spanish, Bangla, and Chinese. She has collaborated with health care professionals, filmmakers, academics, students, spiritual leaders, and architects. A frequent guest in the faculties of Nursing, Medicine, Public Health, as well at teaching hospitals, she brings 25 years of psychotherapy practice to her work as a poet and facilitator.

Ronna developed the first Poet in Residence program at Sinai Health which ran from 2012-2019. She is currently Poet in Community to the University of Toronto and Poet in Residence in the Health, Arts and Humanities Programme. Her “Spontaneous Poetry Booth” and “RX for Poetry” have been featured in hospitals and fundraisers in Canada and abroad. Her chapbook, Who is your mercy contact? will be published in March.

Ronna Bloom, M.ED
Poet in Residence, HAH, University of Toronto
Poet in Community, University of Toronto
www.ronnabloom.com 

To register: Open to all U of T Medical Students, Residents, Physicians and Learners from other disciplines. Register here.

COMING THIS FALL (2022) - PHOTOGRAPHY ELECTIVE FOR MEDICAL STUDENTS

COMING THIS FALL (2022) – PHOTOGRAPHY ELECTIVE FOR MEDICAL STUDENTS

Posted on by Allan Peterkin

Humanities in Medicine—Photography Elective

Medicine Through the Lens of Photography: Empathy, Advocacy, Compassion through Storytelling

Dr. Dawn Lim, BSc, MD, FRCP(C), MBA, Certificate of Digital Photography, Certificate of Creative Writing (candidate), Clinician Teacher and Assistant Professor, Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Medicine

Email: dawn.lim@utoronto.ca  for more information

Zoom link will be specific to sessions

Learning Goals:

  • Background on the culture of medicine as seen in the literature

o   Behaviours such as bullying, harassment, favoritism, perfectionism (imposter syndrome), cynicism, and productivity as self-worth are common in medicine

o   Dr. Brené Brown (a grounded theory researcher expert in shame and vulnerability) has mapped out the elements of shame. The above behaviours, which we see in medicine, are all shame-based since they all exist when empathy does not co-exist

  • Storytelling is an excellent tool for connection and reflection. I wish to pilot a story-based photography elective to give undergraduate medicine trainees a chance to explore a theme of shame in their medical practice.
  • Goals:

o   Workshop#1 (1 hour): open discussion with medical students about the pervasiveness of shame culture in medicine, what is shame, how does it manifest

o   Workshop #2 (1 hour): discussion about how visual storytelling can be a powerful medium for advocacy work

o   Workshop #3 (2 hours): how to design a photo essay

  • As a group, we will choose one theme of shame to explore through photography
  • We will also go through tips on how to craft a visual story
  • Students will then be encouraged to create their own photographs

o   Workshop #4: feedback and critiques

  • 3 x 1 hour long online opportunities to critique photographs created by the students that can illustrate this concept of shame in medicine.
  • This will be done approximately every six weeks with dates decided by majority of the group
  • Critiques will be amongst students with feedback from 1-2 photographer/doctors with experience in publishing/photo-essays
  • Create a group photo essay to share at the  Synesthesia Art Show

Duration of Elective:

o   8 hours instruction time plus independent time for photographing own vision of the chosen theme

Deadline and Key Details:

o   Students need access to their own camera (preferred) thought smartphone may be acceptable if high resolution

o   Need to sign up early in the fall since the off hours creation time for photography may fall outside of the elective