The Projects Section is an area to view Current Projects and Legacy Projects by members of the UMass Chan Medical Humanities Lab. It is a forum for members of the UMass Chan Humanities in Medicine community to find collaborators and is also a resource for students to identify potential project advisors and collaborators for Capstone and other projects. For more information on a particular project, please email the project's contact(s).
Legacy Projects or projects that have been transferred between students in different graduating classes have been marked with a ☆
☆ Legacy Project
Project Description:
Adapted from The Moth storytelling radio show and podcast, Med Moth was established by medical students at UMass Chan in 2016 to provide a forum for those in the medical community to share reflections on their experiences in medicine, in an effort to address the pressing issues of burnout. The goal of Med Moth is to promote humanism in medicine through storytelling by all members of the greater UMass Chan medical community. This provides the opportunity for individuals to not only reflect, but also learn from the diverse perspectives and experiences of their peers. Past storytellers have ranged from the Chief of Pediatric Surgery to registered nurses to medical students.
Contacts:
Project Status: Ongoing
Date of the next Med Moth: TBD
Project Description: This year has been more than any of us has bargained for, and we have collectively experiences many highs and lows. Introducing 2020 Hindsight, a creative space to reflect on our year. Please submit photos, essays, poetry, recordings, or other media from your experiences this year to 2020hindsightprojectumassmed@gmail.com. Please include whether you would like your submission to be anonymous or not and a brief description and title of your piece (if you would like one included). This will be compiled into a portfolio-style site, a virtual space where we can come together. Any questions can also be submitted to 2020hindsightprojectumassmed@gmail.com.
Contact: Megan Hansen and Bronwyn Wada-Gill
Project Status: Website is live!
☆ Legacy Project
Project Description:
An online literary and visual art publication of the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School . The journal was a collaborative project for students in the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing, and Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, as well as residents, faculty, patients and other members of the UMass Chan Medical School and UMass Memorial Medical Center community, to channel their experiences through works of poetry, prose, and photography.
Contact:
Project Status: In hiatus, seeking new editors
Project Description:
Family Medicine Moments (formerly Thursday Morning Memo) is a weekly distribution list that shares medical humanities pieces from the Family Medicine and Community Health community at UMass Chan Medical School that includes Fitchburg, Barre, Worcester, Lawrence and also community docs, students, residents, scribes, and graduates of our program and school. Curated by Hugh Silk, MD and Linda Cragin, MS, it is a forum to share clinical success stories, dilemmas and interesting encounters in the form of musings, brief essays, stories, poems, haiku, 55 and 6-word stories, music, photos, artwork, or something completely different. All submissions must be free of personal health information (PHI) or HIPAA identifiers to preserve confidentiality.
To view Family Medicine Moments from 2022-present, visit the searchable archive in eScholarship@UMassChan. Submissions from 2014-2020 are currently available in a separate archive on the Family Medicine Resources Page.
To submit or subscribe to the distribution list, contact:
Status: Ongoing, accepting submissions from students, residents, faculty and staff in the Family Medicine and Community Health community at UMass Chan
Project Description: Very active group at Eisenberg of elderly writers that has been studied. Group taught by Lucia Knowles. The writing activities really engaged the seniors and Joel organized a study looking at depression, socialization, and MOCA scores and found improved socialization—saw tremendous engagement. An additional outcome was a published book of the group’s writing. Lucia Knowles taught this and is going to do this at 4 Nursing Homes—has specific questions she will have them write to.
Contact: Joel Popkin
Project Status: Ongoing. Looking for students who might be interested in taking part in this project, looking at the effects of the writing itself.
Project Description: The Interstitium is a new multimedia, online home for the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School community members. The blog serves as a space for sharing reflections on daily life, medical training, and medical practice.
Website: https://theinterstitium.home.blog/
Contact: Megan Hansen
Project Status: Currently accepting submissions of insights, questions, and experiences to TheInterstitiumUMassMed@gmail.com
Project Description: Murmurs: Stories from our Journey in Medicine is a narrative medicine podcast that explores how health providers and trainees think about their experiences in medicine, from how they relate to their patients to what makes medical professionals tick. Each episode features a member of the UMass Chan Medical School community to discuss a poem or essay they have written about an impactful moment in their medical education or career and takes the listener through the inspiration, writing process and interview with the author. This storytelling podcast was the Capstone project of Divya Bhatia ('21) and Qiuwei Yang ('22), with Dr. Hugh Silk advising.
Podcasts were released weekly and are available to subscribe now on Apple iTunes Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor, and other streaming platforms! Through these podcasts, we hope to build community, promote reflection and increase awareness of issues of medical education and health inequality. Reach us at murmursumassmed@gmail.com or through our Anchor homepage: https://anchor.fm/murmurs-podcast
Podcast episodes are archived in eScholarship@UMassChan: https://repository.escholarship.umassmed.edu/handle/20.500.14038/14
Contacts:
Qiuwei Yang
Lael Ngangmeni
Jesse Sardell
Project Status: Now streaming! Have completed the first season and second seasons.
Project Description:
https://umassmed.sharepoint.com/sites/clinical-anthology
Mobile-friendly website with a collection of essays, poems, and linked readings to foster meaning and humanism in medicine. The website replaced the physical anthology of student writings given to the third year class as a reminder of humanism.
Contact:
Project Status: Website complete. Requires annual review.
Project Description: The Graphic Medicine Review (GMR) (ISSN 2993-8252) publishes scholarly works relevant to both the comics medium (aka comic books, graphic novels, manga, bande dessinée, etc.) and healthcare, medicine, wellness, patient experience, and public health policy. GMR is an open-access journal primarily produced in English but international in scope and concerns.
Contact: Mary Piorun, Co-Editor
Project Status: Open for submissions!
Project Description: Developing research and events on the subject of graphic medicine and incorporating the library's graphic medicine collection.
Contact: Tori Rossetti
Project Status: Ongoing
Project Description: Have New Music therapist—1st music therapist seeing adults and looking to build music therapy.
Contact: Jen Reidy
Project Status: Ongoing. Looking for help demonstrating value and measuring outcomes.
Project Description: Interested in “Mental Music” (thinking about music) v listening to music—light up different areas of the brain on functional MRI; wants to see if something can be done with Parkinson’s and thinking about music and if this has any therapeutic effect.
Contact: Joel Popkin
Project Status: In development.
2023-2024
Music and Medicine
Description: The Music and Medicine curriculum contains a number of modules about specific topics in music and healing. Overall course goals: recognize how music can be used to promote health, healing, and well-being ; describe how music has been incorporated into the field of medical humanism; discuss how the study of music and cognition has contributed to improved understanding of neurology and brain science ; examine in depth how music can be used therapeutically in clinical settings; and, explain what doctors can learn from musicians and how music can enhance the education of physicians.
Contact: Michael Bolstad (michael.bolstad@umassmed.edu)
Available: Fall and Spring semesters
Art for the Physician
Description: This OEE will be a unique opportunity for undergraduate medical students to explore the integration of medicine and the visual arts. Art is an extremely useful tool for physicians. Physicians can use art to communicate complex procedures and medical concepts to patients, to provide therapy to patients, or to raise awareness about issues in healthcare. Physicians can also use art for self-reflection, well-being, and prevention of burnout. Students will learn about the history and importance of medical illustrators and art therapists. Student will also gain basic art skills in the context of medical illustration, graphic medicine, and art therapy. Students will be able to practice and use these skills to create a final project showcasing what they have learned during the OEE.
Contact: Sirena Khanna (sirena.khanna1@umassmed.edu)
Available: Fall semester
Medical Creative Writing
Description: This elective will allow you to explore different forms of writing -- essays, creative nonfiction, poetry and short fiction -- to sharpen your skills of observation, description, and analysis, and to enhance your ability to understand, from your own perspective and that of others, the experience of becoming a doctor.
Contact: David Hatem (David.Hatem@umassmemorial.org)
Available: Fall semester
Narratives & Medicine
Description: This course will explore the power of narratives—in written, oral, and visual forms—to shape the way we, as medical students, conceptualize and practice medicine. The care of the sick unfolds in stories and effective healthcare demands the ability to recognize, absorb, interpret, and engage with the stories of others. In each session, students will be asked to critically examine portions of short stories, poems, articles, research, and other narrative forms. As students read, write, and reflect together, we will use the skills of close reading and listening for different perspectives and challenge each other to practice medicine with the parallel skills of attentive listening and empathy. Our selection of stories will explore themes such as race, gender, cultural identity, and mental health.
Contact: Riya Mahesh (Riya.Mahesh@umassmed.edu)
Available: Spring semester
2022-2023
Art for Physicians
Description: This OEE will be a unique opportunity for undergraduate medical students to explore the integration of medicine and the visual arts. Art is an extremely useful tool for physicians. Physicians can use art to communicate complex procedures and medical concepts to patients, to provide therapy to patients, or to raise awareness about issues in healthcare. Physicians can also use art for self-reflection, well-being, and prevention of burnout. Students will learn about the history and importance of medical illustrators and art therapists. Student will also gain basic art skills in the context of medical illustration, graphic medicine, and art therapy. Students will be able to practice and use these skills to create a final project showcasing what they have learned during the OEE.
Contact: Stephanie Choi (stephanie.choi2@umassmed.edu)
Available: Fall semester
Narratives & Medicine
Description: This course will explore the power of narratives—in written, oral, and visual forms—to shape the way we, as medical students, conceptualize and practice medicine. The care of the sick unfolds in stories and effective healthcare demands the ability to recognize, absorb, interpret, and engage with the stories of others. In each session, students will be asked to critically examine portions of short stories, poems, articles, research, and other narrative forms. As students read, write, and reflect together, we will use the skills of close reading and listening for different perspectives and challenge each other to practice medicine with the parallel skills of attentive listening and empathy. Our selection of stories will explore themes such as race, gender, cultural identity, and mental health.
Contact: Michela Oster (michela.oster@umassmed.edu)
Available: Spring semester
2021-2022
Art for Physicians
Description: This OEE will be a unique opportunity for undergraduate medical students to explore the integration of medicine and the visual arts. Students will learn about the history and importance of medical illustrators and art therapists and gain basic art skills in the context of medical illustration, graphic medicine, and art therapy.
Contact: Erin Johnson (Erin.Johnson@umassmed.edu)
Available: Fall semester
Medical Creative Writing
The focus of this elective is to use reflective writing, including essays, creative nonfiction, poetry and short fiction, to sharpen your powers of observation, description and analysis. We have found the writing process to be a valuable method of reflection, enhancing participants' ability to understand - from their own perspective and that of others - the experience of becoming a doctor. Writing about encounters with patients, faculty, and other health care providers, and sharing the writing in a supportive group setting, facilitates mindfulness and deepens understanding of how these experiences influence one's personal and professional development.
Contact: Dr. Dave Hatem (David.Hatem@umassmed.edu)
Available: Fall semester
2022-2023
2021-2022
TBA
2020-2021
TBA
2019-2020
2018-2019
2017-2018
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