Literature & Medicine: Humanities
at the Heart of Health Care  

Literature & Medicine 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
in Veterans Administration Hospitals


New Literature and Medicine Anthologies

Echoes of War: A Literature & Medicine Anthology released in June, 2009, includes poetry, essays and short stories raising issues particularly relevant for health care professionals caring for veterans.

 

Imagine What It’s Like: A Literature and Medicine Anthology released in June, 2008, contains a wide range and large number of selections as well as useful commentary by the editor.

Maine Public Radio interview with Literature & Medicine Program Officer Lizz Sinclair, July, 2008.


Hear talks and presentations by four leaders in the literature and medicine movement—Veneta Masson, Rita Charon, Judy Schaefer and Rafael Campo—given at the Literature & Medicine program’s first national conference, Caring for the Caregiver: Perspectives in Literature and Medicine, held in November 2007.





Outcomes

Participants between 2005 and 2008 reported a great or medium increase in:

empathy for patients79%
interpersonal skills64%
communication skills58%
job satisfaction62%
cultural awareness67%

Read the report by program evaluator Dr. Bruce Clary of the Muskie School of Public Service.

It is as important to know the person who has the disease as it is to know the disease the person .has. -- Sir William Osler
 

Program Reach

Literature & Medicine has reached hundreds of providers, staff members, administrators and policy makers in health care facilities across the country, affecting the care of thousands of patients. The program started in Maine and now has involved a total of 25 states: AZ, CA, CT, DE, FL, HI, IL, MD, MA, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NY, NC, OH, RI, SC, SD, UT, VT VA...and now Argentina!