Participation Type
Workshop
Session Title
Story and Medicine in Appalachia: Creating Healing Communities in Clinical Settings
Session Abstract or Summary
Collaboration between creative writers and medical professionals at West Virginia University (WVU) Medicine represents a unique opportunity for creating healing communities within clinical settings. Using the WVU approaches to narrative medicine as a map, this workshop will explore ideas for projects, budgeting, funding opportunities and grant writing, team building, project execution, patient confidentiality and other aspects of putting together successful projects that serve patients. Participants will leave with tools to start their own projects, best practices for collaboration between interdisciplinary and inter-institutional partners, and ways to survey the project for effectiveness. The workshop will also include an introduction to narrative medicine, the ways it has been adopted for WVU medicine as a regional provider for care to West Virginians and bordering areas, and the ways the initial methodology continues to change and grow to suit populations as diverse as patients with cancer in the outpatient chemotherapy clinic and a microbial unit serving patients in WVU Hospitals. Finally, an offshoot of this work resulted in a patient art exhibit, which will also be featured as part of the workshop as a way to show how to partner with likeminded practioners in art and music therapy.
Presentation #1 Title
Story and Medicine in Appalachia: Creating Healing Communities in Clinical Settings
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Collaboration between creative writers and medical professionals at West Virginia University (WVU) Medicine represents a unique opportunity for creating healing communities within clinical settings. Using the WVU approaches to narrative medicine as a map, this workshop will explore ideas for projects, budgeting, funding opportunities and grant writing, team building, project execution, patient confidentiality and other aspects of putting together successful projects that serve patients. Participants will leave with tools to start their own projects, best practices for collaboration between interdisciplinary and inter-institutional partners, and ways to survey the project for effectiveness. The workshop will also include an introduction to narrative medicine, the ways it has been adopted for WVU medicine as a regional provider for care to West Virginians and bordering areas, and the ways the initial methodology continues to change and grow to suit populations as diverse as patients with cancer in the outpatient chemotherapy clinic and a microbial unit serving patients in WVU Hospitals. Finally, an offshoot of this work resulted in a patient art exhibit, which will also be featured as part of the workshop as a way to show how to partner with likeminded practioners in art and music therapy.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Renée K. Nicholson is the author of the poetry collection Roundabout Directions to Lincoln Center, and her essays, stories and poems have been published in many literary journals and magazines, including Moon City Review, Superstition Review, Poets & Writers, Mid-American Review, Midwestern Gothic, Los Angeles Review, and Gettysburg Review. She is Assistant Professor in the Programs for Multi-and Interdisciplinary Studies at West Virginia University, a recipient of a WVU ADVANCE grant for her work in narrative medicine, a recipient of a grant from West Virginia Commission on the Arts, a grant from West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute, a grant from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, and was the 2011 Emerging Writer-in-Residence at Penn State-Altoona. She has completed the Basic and Advanced Workshops in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University, and is working towards Columbia's Professional Certificate in Narrative Medicine. She is co-editing Bodies of Truth: Narratives of Illness, Disability and Medicine forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press, and consults on narrative medicine projects at other institutions. Renée is a member of both the Dance Critics Association and the National Book Critics Circle. She has served as the Assistant to the Director of the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop since 2007, and offered a narrative medicine workshop as part of the 2017 event.
Presentation #2 Title
Story and Medicine in Appalachia: Creating Healing Communities in Clinical Settings
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Collaboration between creative writers and medical professionals at West Virginia University (WVU) Medicine represents a unique opportunity for creating healing communities within clinical settings. Using the WVU approaches to narrative medicine as a map, this workshop will explore ideas for projects, budgeting, funding opportunities and grant writing, team building, project execution, patient confidentiality and other aspects of putting together successful projects that serve patients. Participants will leave with tools to start their own projects, best practices for collaboration between interdisciplinary and inter-institutional partners, and ways to survey the project for effectiveness. The workshop will also include an introduction to narrative medicine, the ways it has been adopted for WVU medicine as a regional provider for care to West Virginians and bordering areas, and the ways the initial methodology continues to change and grow to suit populations as diverse as patients with cancer in the outpatient chemotherapy clinic and a microbial unit serving patients in WVU Hospitals. Finally, an offshoot of this work resulted in a patient art exhibit, which will also be featured as part of the workshop as a way to show how to partner with likeminded practioners in art and music therapy.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Whit Arnold is a graduate from Muskingum University (BA) and West Virginia University (MFA). His work has appeared in The Rumpus, The Examined Life and Schuylkill Valley Journal. In addition, Whit is a co-investigator on a study conducted at the WVU Cancer Institute, where patients participate in storytelling and writing activities to help assess quality of life and to help facilitate advance care planning.
Conference Subthemes
Health
Story and Medicine in Appalachia: Creating Healing Communities in Clinical Settings
Collaboration between creative writers and medical professionals at West Virginia University (WVU) Medicine represents a unique opportunity for creating healing communities within clinical settings. Using the WVU approaches to narrative medicine as a map, this workshop will explore ideas for projects, budgeting, funding opportunities and grant writing, team building, project execution, patient confidentiality and other aspects of putting together successful projects that serve patients. Participants will leave with tools to start their own projects, best practices for collaboration between interdisciplinary and inter-institutional partners, and ways to survey the project for effectiveness. The workshop will also include an introduction to narrative medicine, the ways it has been adopted for WVU medicine as a regional provider for care to West Virginians and bordering areas, and the ways the initial methodology continues to change and grow to suit populations as diverse as patients with cancer in the outpatient chemotherapy clinic and a microbial unit serving patients in WVU Hospitals. Finally, an offshoot of this work resulted in a patient art exhibit, which will also be featured as part of the workshop as a way to show how to partner with likeminded practioners in art and music therapy.
