Penn State College of Medicine’s Department of Humanities has several initiatives that benefit students, faculty, staff and everyone at the Penn State College of Medicine campus. You can find links to some of their projects below.
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Humanities Projects
Look Out for Child Abuse
Look Out for Child Abuse is an online mandated-reporter training that uses interactive videos to help early childhood professionals learn when and how to report suspected child abuse.
Physician Writers Group
Penn State Health’s Physician Writers Group is a workshop for clinicians who are interested in creative writing for publication in professional medical journals, hosted by Dr. Kimberly Myers, who holds a doctorate in literature.
Qualitative Research Initiative
Qualitative research is designed to reveal a target audience’s range of behavior and the perceptions that drive it with reference to specific topics or issues. It uses in-depth studies of small groups of people to guide and support the construction of hypotheses. The results are descriptive rather than predictive.
The Doctors Kienle Center for Humanistic Medicine
The Doctors Kienle Center for Humanistic Medicine is an endowment that supports projects and initiatives that promote compassion in healthcare settings. This work has flourished with the support of many departments and includes ambassadors from throughout the hospital, medical school and community.
Wild Onions
Wild Onions is an annual journal of poetry, prose and visual art funded by The Doctors Kienle Center for Humanistic Medicine. All works in Wild Onions are created by members of the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center community. Most entries pertain to some dimension of medicine, but submissions are welcomed on all topics.
Center Stage
Center Stage enhances the healthcare experience by showcasing art, music and creative writing that calms, nurtures and inspires. Through Center Stage, we seek ways to enhance the well-being of individuals who come through our doors, whether they are patients, caregivers, employees or students.
Upcoming Center Stage events are listed here.
Graphic Narratives
Since 2009, fourth-year medical students at Penn State College of Medicine have created comics as part of a course called “Graphic Storytelling and Medical Narratives.” The course was developed to show students how graphics and text can be used to effectively communicate complex medical narratives and to help students develop their own stories into graphic depictions.
LEARN MORE ABOUT GRAPHIC NARRATIVES
Patients as Teachers Project
Embedded into the first year of the MD student curriculum is the experiential Patients as Teachers Project, which involves students visiting patients in their homes to learn about the lived experience of illness. Some students make short films about their patients and screen them in each spring. Others write essays reflecting on what they have learned from their patients or develop creative projects to honor their patients’ stories.
LEARN MORE ABOUT PATIENTS AS TEACHERS
TimeSlips
TimeSlips is an improvisational creative storytelling activity used in care settings for persons with dementia. It draws upon the remaining strengths of people with cognitive challenges, and places emphasis on imagination rather than memory. Students at Penn State College of Medicine visit local assisted-living homes to facilitate TimeSlips sessions and study the impact on quality of life.
Ethics Consultations
Clinical ethics consultation is one of many services that can help with difficult choices or when there are disagreements about a patient’s care. Most challenges that arise within patient care are handled by speaking with the medical team members directly involved in care, as well as social workers, clergy and the patient advocate for the hospital. When uncertainty or conflict remains, ethics consultations are sometimes requested.
LEARN MORE ABOUT ETHICS CONSULTATIONS
(internal users only)
Ethics Pocket Cards
The ethics consultation service at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center developed ethics pocket cards to summarize, in a clear and accessible manner, core knowledge about clinical ethics. We hope that these cards will be helpful not only to individual health professionals, but also to institutions who may wish to develop similar materials for their own use.
First Fridays
From September through May, the Department of Humanities, in conjunction with the Doctors Kienle Center for Humanistic Medicine, presents a noon hour brown-bag discussion of a humanities-related topic. The sessions are free, open to all, and no registration is required.
Upcoming First Friday events and other lectures and special events are listed here.
History of Medicine Lectureship
This lectureship brings a nationally or internationally recognized leader in the history of medicine to Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center for an annual public lecture, which is open to all members of the Medical Center (including medical students, faculty and staff) and the surrounding community.
EMAIL CLAIRE DE BOER FOR DETAILS
Kienle Center Players
Beginning in September 2008, the Doctors Kienle Center for Humanistic Medicine and the Department of Humanities at Penn State College of Medicine have invited members of the student body, faculty and medical center staff to participate in the presentation of one-act plays dealing with issues surrounding medical care and medical ethics.