Presidents, Politics, and Poems: Inaugural Poetry and the American Presidency
Rutgers Walt Whitman Center for the Culture and Politics of Democracy (New Brunswick). Reading of poems commissioned for U.S. presidential inaugurations coupled with a discussion on the context in which they were created and the images that they convey.
Literature & Medicine
Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care® is a national award-winning reading and discussion program for health care professionals that, as one participant writes, “renews the heart and soul of health care.” 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.
Why is Literature & Medicine important in New Jersey?
An innovative and cost-effective way to improve patient care, one hospital administrator summed up Literature & Medicine’s impact: “The reflection and conversation that takes place in the process greatly enhances the level of cooperation, collaboration, and esprit de corps within our hospital family and our community at large. The impetus in turn greatly improves the quality of care we provide to our patients and their families.”
As our state’s population becomes increasingly diverse, healthcare workers can no longer rely on what they know from their own lives to understand their patients, who may be of a different religious, socio-economic or cultural background. Literature gives healthcare workers the opportunity to see through another person’s eyes while the group discussion format helps break down the hierarchies among doctors, nurses and administrative staff in the hospital that can impede care.
By helping healthcare workers at all levels better understand their patients and each other, Literature & Medicine improves the quality of healthcare in New Jersey. Read about Literature & Medicine in New Jersey in the Star-Ledger.
Since the program’s inception in New Jersey in 2005, eights hospitals have taken part in Literature & Medicine, with the VA hospital joining in 2010 as part of a federally funded grant. NJCH is delighted to welcome Morristown Medical Center to the Literature & Medicine family this year. The complete list of hospitals is below, with those who will be participating in 2013 in bold:
- AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center—Atlantic City
- The Cancer Institute of New Jersey—New Brunswick
- Cooper University Hospital—Camden
- Morristown Medical Center—Morristown
- Mountainside Hospital—Montclair
- Overlook Hospital—Summit
- UMDNJ-NJMS (Creative Arts Healthcare)—Newark
- VA New Jersey Health Care System—Lyons/East Orange
Outcomes
Evaluations show uniformly positive results for all five goals of the program: increased empathy for patients, greater cultural awareness, improved interpersonal relations, better communication and more job satisfaction. One participant remarked that Literature & Medicine has, “broadened my horizons to appreciate all the emotions/feelings involved in patient care and opened my eyes to other peoples’ points of view.”
Participants in New Jersey in 2008 reported a significant increase in:
Empathy for patients
Cultural awareness
Job satisfaction
Interpersonal relations
Communication
For more information on this program and how your hospital or health care organization participate, please contact NJCH at 888-394-6524 or LitandMed@njch.org
Poetry Heals—Literature & Medicine Celebrates National Poetry Month
Articles, stories, books—
every day I read how
people heal themselves.
from “Body of Diminishing Motion”
by Joan Seliger Sidney
1st year internal medicine resident at Cooper University Hospital Poetry Heals program
Poetry has been shown to be an important tool for healing—both for caregivers and for patients. Poetry Heals workshops use poetry to emphasize three skills that are essential for healthcare workers: Deep Listening, Deep Speaking, and Deep Thinking all of which are critical for improving communication between healthcare workers and patients and among staff. Poetry also aids in developing empathy for patients and helps reduce burnout.
Here are results from our inaugural Poetry Heals program in 2012:
85% of attendees said they would “encourage the hospital to provide more programs like this, which connect poetry/literature with healthcare.”
UMDNJ healthcare staff pose with poetry.
Online Chapbook of Poems about Healing
Download a chapbook of healing poems, thanks to CavanKerry Press! The poems included in the chapbook are listed below and deal directly with issues of healing, medicine, caregiving and illness.
Download the Online Chapbook here.
|
From The Disheveled Bed |
From Elegy for the Floater |
|
From Against Which |
From The Red Canoe |
|
From Life With Sam |
From Little Boy Blue |
|
From Surviving Has Made Me Crazy |
From Body of Diminishing Motion |
|
From We Mad Climb Shaky Ladders |
From Fun Being Me |
If you enjoyed these poems, please let us know!
These events are being offered as part of Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care ® a national award-winning reading and discussion program for health care professionals that, as one participant writes, “renews the heart and soul of health care.” 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.
For more information on this program and how your hospital or health care organization participate, please contact NJCH at 888-394-6524 or LitandMed@njch.org
Related Humanities Connection Episodes:
Poetry Heals—Literature & Medicine Celebrates National Poetry Month
An Interview with Joan Cusack Handler, editor, Teresa Carson, poet, and Mary Rizzo, NJCH.
Poetry Heals—Literature & Medicine Celebrates National Poetry Month
An Interview with Joan Cusack Handler, Teresa Carson, and Mary Rizzo
Aired March 25, 2012
With its evocative imagery and artistic language, poetry can be a visceral way to understand another person’s experiences, to emotionally connect with them, and see through their eyes. Healthcare workers are increasingly turning to literature, including poetry, in their practice, to improve their patient care and alleviate the stress of their jobs.
In this episode, Joan Cusack Handler, editor, founder and publisher of CavanKerry Press, a New Jersey publisher specializing in poetry; Teresa Carson, a poet and development director for CavanKerry; and, Mary Rizzo, NJCH Associate Director and adminstrator of the Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care program, discuss the power of poetry, especially as a tool for healing. Carson reads three poems, written to help her deal with her mentally ill brother’s suicide. These poems, and more than two dozen others, are available at Poetry Heals—Literature & Medicine Celebrates National Poetry Month.
To Learn More Visit:
- Poetry Heals—Literature & Medicine Celebrates National Poetry Month: Online chapbook with poems about healing and illness.
- Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care: Find out more about how NJCH is connecting literature with better patient care through this innovative program.
- CavanKerry Press: Publisher of poetry and memoir, based in New Jersey.
- National Poetry Month: Find resources to celebrate National Poetry Month.
- Visit the Gold Foundation for Humanism in Medicine, a supporter of CavanKerry Press, and a leader in bringing humanism to medical practice.