Truly Attending: Cultivating Attention, Presence and Self-Awareness Through Narrative Medicine Workshops.

Abstract

Narrative Medicine is an international discipline at the intersection of humanities, the arts, clinical practice and healthcare justice. This discipline aims to deepen skills of self-awareness, presence, attention and creative capacities and evokes our capacity to attend to the emotional undercurrents of narrative stories both in spoken and written form. Through group discussion and human connection of sharing stories/writing and creative exchange, we expand justice, equity, attention to self and others, and how we interact with our complex healthcare system. A one-hour narrative medicine workshop has been developed with the goal and intention for other medical educators, faculty, and leaders in the field of well-being to be able to reference this step-by-step curriculum and replicate it in their home programs in order to mitigate burnout and promote well-being, connection and community.