Hello 2022!
A screenshot from our last forum of 2021!
Dear Stewards,
We hope, even as the world continues to deliver difficult news, that you are finding yourselves well and safe as 2022 progresses.
As we prepare to announce our 2022 forums—which will focus on the collective experience of the pandemic through the lens of narrative and healthcare stewardship—I’ve been reflecting on my experience so far as an undergraduate student worker with PAHS.
I began in this role with PAHS in spring of 2021, and would never have imagined our project would evolve so much so fast. In mid-January, we finished our 2021 activities with our at-large symposium, Stewarding the Story: Tapping into the Power of Narrative—Your Own and Others’—to Envision and Create a Healthier Future. Our symposium focused on narrative medicine and expanding our definition of health stewardship. The community that has coalesced around this project, as well as my own perception of our healthcare system, has grown exponentially. I have learned that narrative medicine is vital in healthcare stewardship. I learned this mainly by attending our forums, the symposium, and the narrative medicine workshop held after the symposium. All of these experiences shed new light on how I view the healthcare system and healthcare stewardship. Ultimately, it was largely due to the participants—like you!—who attended our forums and symposium that I was able to grow and learn.
As a result of my inspiring work with the PAHS collaborative faculty and staff, I’ve begun looking more deeply into the connections between healthcare and the humanities. I recently discovered that the Dell Medical School in Texas Austin is now offering a dual Master’s program that binds together medicine and humanities. This program exposes students to medicine as well as other topics such as disability studies, health communication culture and health, and medicine and narrative! In the words of the Dell Medical School’s associate dean of undergraduate medical education and interim chair of medical education, Bell Nelson, ‘this dual-degree opportunity reflects growing appreciation that exposure to the humanities in medical education helps physicians in all kinds of ways, including becoming more empathic and supporting their ability to relate to and communicate with patients beyond their disease processes.” I’ve also discovered The Drawing Together Archive and their monthly comics workshops facilitated by Graphic Medicine, an organization based in Toronto, Canada that intersects comics and healthcare.
Everything I’ve learned so far by working with PAHS and exploring the crossover between narrative and healthcare gives me hope in the future of our healthcare system and future providers.
I look forward to being back in touch with you soon about opportunities for you to participate in our next set up forums. Stay tuned!
And, as always, if you have a health narrative to share, or an idea, or a question, please do reach out to us at steward@umn.edu. Thank you!
On behalf of PAHS,
Asheanna