Announcing new program: Literature & Medicine

Imagine doctors, nurses, receptionists, trustees, administrators, lab techs, and physician assistants, with books in hand, sitting in a circle in a hospital conference room, cafeteria, or lounge. With the help of a humanities scholar, they are talking about the novel, play, or poem they have read, reflecting together on what it means to them - as people, and as professionals engaged in the enterprise of health care.

Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care is an award-winning, hospital-based, scholar-led humanities reading and discussion program for health care professionals that benefits both them and their patients. The program is an innovative and cost-effective way to improve patient-caregiver interaction.

In January 2007, the Delaware Humanities Forum will introduce the program to the First State, in partnership with the Delaware Academy of Medicine and the Christiana Healthcare System in Newark.

These monthly discussions explore selected works of poetry, fiction, drama, and non-fiction that offer health care workers, policy makers, hospital trustees, and other staff an opportunity to reflect on the complex nature of their roles and responsibilities in relation to the patients they serve and the colleagues with whom they work.

Why implement Literature & Medicine?
Although medicine has made great technical progress, the quality of patient-caregiver interactions has generally declined. Patients remain unknown to caregivers, often of a different cultural background, economic status, or religion. Literature, however, allows program participants to experience worlds outside their own understanding. Patients as well as books require interpretation, and it is the humanities - the traditionally interpretative disciplines - that offer health care providers an effective way of understanding their patients and their stories.

Who participates?
Small groups - 10 to 25 members. Participants can be anyone serving in the health care professions, including public health workers, health educators, and policymakers.

When?
Monthly for six months. Meetings are held during the evening and include a light supper and two hours of discussion led by a humanities scholar. The scholar develops a syllabus especially for that group.

Where?
Participants meet in a congenial space that invites them to step outside their professional roles and share their reflections on what they have read. They are encouraged to explore the human dimensions of their work, examine the assumptions they bring to it, and draw connections between the language of medicine and that of human experience.

Participants develop:

• Better communication skills, leading to more effective and satisfying interactions with patients and colleagues
• Broader perspective on themselves as health care professionals and on the health care system
• An appreciation of how cultural and socioeconomic perspectives and family history affect patient health and patient care
• A greater satisfaction with their work and with their understanding of each other

"In Palliative Care we talk of 'delivering the patient from their anonymity'.  We want to get to know that patient as a person. It is then we have the best chance to bring about 'Healing' in whatever form that may take.  This is the real business of medicine.  Sign me and my palliative care team up."  Dr. John Goodill, Christiana Care Health System