Programs & Electives

The Healthcare Foundation Center for Humanism and Medicine
UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School
Presents
Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care®

Facilitated By: Suzanne McConnell
Adjunct Prof. of English, Hunter College

Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care® is a national award-winning reading and discussion program for health care professionals. Literature & Medicine discussions have helped health care professionals across the country improve their communication and interpersonal skills while increasing their cultural awareness, empathy for patients and job satisfaction.

The New Jersey Council of the Humanities initiated their Literature and Medicine Program in 2005, www.njch.org. The program was created by the Maine Humanities Council in 1997 for Maine health care professionals; by 2007 Literature & Medicine groups will have met in over 90 different hospitals in 19 states. For more information on the Maine Humanities Council please visit their website at:

http://mainehumanities.org/programs/litandmed/index.html.

The New Jersey Council of the Humanities’ Literature and Medicine program brings together an identified scholar who will meet monthly in the evening, with health care students and professionals, in order to facilitate an insightful discussion of humanism in medicine, as portrayed in specifically chosen literature, be that stories, essays, poems, plays, or other creative writings. The program begins January 2010 and ends in May. The meetings will be held on Tuesday evenings from 5:30-7:30PM.

Funding the Literature and Medicine program was made possible through a generous grant from The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey. The program is a collaborative effort between the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, and The Healthcare Foundation Center for Humanism and Medicine at UMDNJ. The UMDNJ Liaison for the Literature and Medicine Program is Diane Kaufman, MD