The Healer's Art
An activity of the Family Medicine Interest Group
University of Utah School of Medicine
General Description
The Healer’s Art activity was offered for the first time at the University of Utah in the winter of 2007 through our Family Medicine Interest Group. This activity is our version of the elective course created by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, at the University of California, San Francisco, and delivered there since 1993.
We decided to offer this activity here because it addresses a need that exists in medicine. Physicians must be effective scientists and healers, both for their patients’ sake and for their own well-being. Our medical school curriculum must give students the tools to care for themselves and their colleagues; thus, eventually to be capable of forming healing relationships with patients. Fortunately, a course already exists which demonstrates excellence.
At UCSF, Dr. Remen’s Healer’s Art course has consistently been rated extremely highly by the medical students and, as an optional elective, regularly enlists about 40% of the students in each first-year class. Students who take the course believe it meets a need which is not addressed elsewhere in their curriculum and have selected it twice to receive the “best elective” award at UCSF.
The Healer’s Art course was also featured in US News and World Reports’ “Best Graduate Schools” edition in both 2002 and 2005. Additionally, the course has been successfully exported to 44 medical schools throughout the US and the world including many Ivy League medical schools such as Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, Stanford and Johns Hopkins. Ten more schools, including the University of Utah, offered it for the first time during the 2006-2007 academic year.
The University of Utah activity is delivered with the same format and activities as the course at UCSF. It consists of five sessions, each three hours long. Sessions involve both a large and small group settings. Small groups include one physician and generally five students, and the membership of the groups are the same throughout all sessions in order for deep and genuine relationships to develop.
Activities involve lectures, a series of creative reflection exercises and small group discussions based on these activities. The activities have been honed over 14 years to help students and faculty reaffirm their commitment to the values which brought them to medicine, connect with genuine respect to each other and find meaning in their work.
Dr. Remen's website, www.commonweal.org/ishi/programs/healers_art.html provides additional details about the course at UCSF.
Faculty
This activity is taught by activity directors, faculty facilitators and participating students, as well, in that each student is an essential element of the learning and growth that occurs in the sessions. Facilitators involve physicians from the University of Utah or our local community who find meaning in this work and have volunteered to participate. Activity directors, listed below, have both trained with Dr. Remen in California in order to deliver this activity with the same integrity and impact she demonstrates at UCSF.
University of Utah Healer's Art Activity Directors:
Susan Cochella, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor, Clinical
Department of Family and Preventive Medicine
University of Utah School of Medicine
John Houchins, MD
Assistant Professor, Clinical
Department of Family and Preventive Medicine
University of Utah School of Medicine
Student Requirements
Students who participate in the Healer’s Art activity are required to attend all five sessions in their entirety. This is because the power of the activity comes from the group relationships that can only occur if all individuals in each group are present throughout the entire process. If a student misses even one session, the entire group’s experience is diminished.
Students must be a medical student at the University of Utah’s School of Medicine and be in their first-, second- or fourth-year of medical school, or else be serving as one of our “student advisors” to the faculty in order to participate. The 2008-2009 Student Advisors are Janie Pak, MSII; Emily Poff, MSIV; and Cassie Whittier, MSII.
2009 Schedule, University of Utah
| Session 1: January 12 (Mon) | “Discovering and Nurturing Your Wholeness” |
| Session 2: January 27 (Tues) | “Sharing Grief and Honoring Loss” |
| Session 3: February 2 (Mon) | “Sharing Grief and Honoring Loss” (groups continued) |
| Session 4: February 17 (Tues) | “Beyond Analysis: Allowing Awe in Medicine” |
| Session 5: February 23 (Mon) | “The Care of the Soul: Service as a Way of Life” |
Sessions will begin at 6:30 pm, and end at 9:30 pm.
The sessions are held at the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine in Research Park at 375 Chipeta Way, Suite A.
Students who sign up for this activity will receive detailed directions by email from Dr. Susan Cochella in advance of the first session.
Sign-up Procedure
Space is limited for this activity and is distributed on a first-come, first-served basis depending on each student’s class. We intend to reserve space for at least five fourth-year students and, otherwise, give priority to first- and second-year students.
To discuss or sign up for this activity, please send Dr. Cochella an email. She will notify you as soon as possible after receiving your email if space is available for you to participate.
