Caring for Our Patients, Our Students, Ourselves: The Power of Narrative

The power of narrative…to humanize, to heal, to transform healthcare and health policy. Health benefits of narrative for patients are well documented and both patients’ and caregivers’ (family and professional) narratives can inform public health and research policy agendas. In a rapidly changing, increasingly technologic healthcare environment, however, how can we, within health professions education, maintain the centrality of narrative for competent and compassionate relationship-centered healthcare? Interactive (guided) reflective writing and reading literature can deepen understanding of patients’ experience of illness, cultivate and preserve empathy, foster reflective capacity, and promote meaning-making, ideally strengthening the physician-patient relationship.

Join Dr. Hedy Wald as she discusses the role of narrative for optimizing patient care and the use of interactive reflective writing-enhanced reflection to support ethical, humanistic professional identity formation and resilience/wellbeing in health professions education and practice. Dr. Wald brings educational and experiential lenses with her medical education scholarship as well as the illness narrative turn of her life and will share excerpts of her published essays and poetry. 

Hedy S. Wald, PhD is Clinical Professor of Family Medicine; Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Director of Resident Resilience & Wellbeing, Residency Programs in Child Neurology and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities; Boston Children’s Hospital-Harvard Medical School, and Faculty; Harvard Medical School Global Pediatrics Leadership Program.

Dr. Wald has been recognized with Dean’s Excellence in Teaching Awards, served as a Fulbright Scholar (medical education) for Ben Gurion University of Health Sciences, Israel, and is a Gold Humanism Foundation Harvard-Macy Scholar. Dr. Wald has been a Visiting Professor at over 60 healthcare professions schools world-wide, presenting on interactive reflective writing-enhanced reflection supporting professional identity formation as well as promoting resilience, wellbeing, and vitality in healthcare professions education and practice. Frameworks for assessing reflection and for guiding faculty in crafting quality written feedback to students’ reflective narratives which Dr. Wald helped develop are currently in use worldwide within health professions education.

Dr. Wald publishes and presents on her family cancer caregiver experience, including for the National Cancer Policy Forum of the National Academies of Medicine, Washington, DC. Her creative writing, reviews, and poetry have appeared in literary and medical journals as well as medical education blogs. Her work has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Medical Independent (Ireland), and Jerusalem Post.  Follow her on Twitter: @hedy_wald “Mind/Body/Spirit of MedEd”

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A light lunch will be provided on a first come, first served basis.
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For disclosure information regarding Mayo Clinic School of Continuous Professional Development accreditation review committee member(s), please go here.

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TRANSCRIPT
Any credit or attendance awarded from this series will appear on your Transcript.