Dance and Stories Honour Nursing Profession

Press poster above for more details

“An Evening Celebrating the Lives of Nurses and Nursing”

featuring:

Lift-Breathe-Carry, a spoken-word performance by Verb Ballets,
Cleveland’s National Repertory Dance Company
Based on the poetry of Jeanne Bryner, RN, BA

Readings by Cortney Davis, RN, MA, ANP, from her latest book
The Heart’s Truth: Essays on the Art of Nursing (Kent State University Press)

Audience Talk-Back moderated by:

Martin Kohn, PhD, Center for Literature, Medicine and Biomedical Humanities, Hiram College

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Pasquerilla Performing Arts Center
University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown
450 Schoolhouse Road
Johnstown, PA 15904

Doors open at 7:15 pm
Performance starts at 8:00 pm

Admission: Free
Seating is limited. Reservations required.
(412) 647-5832 or cep@pitt.edu

Lift-Breathe-Carry is a spoken-word performance based on poems in the book Tenderly Lift Me by Jeanne Bryner, RN. These poems tell the stories of nurses from around the world, spanning over three centuries. From a nurse in a Quebec hospital in 1694 and a nurse caring for victims of the Oklahoma City bombings in 1994, to Helen Albert, civil rights activist and first African American nurse from Trumbull County Ohio.

Verb Ballets is Cleveland’s National Repertory Dance Company. The mission of Verb Ballets is to promote and develop interest in and appreciation for contemporary dance nationally, regionally and locally through performance, programs that promote learning and nurture wellness, audience and community dialogue and advocacy efforts to support the art form.

As a curator of expressive movement that is globally connected and nationally respected, Verb Ballets is a leader in performing dance works of the highest caliber including historical masterpieces, works by outstanding contemporary choreographers and by dynamic emerging artists.

Stories by William Carlos Williams featured in Reader's Theatre

Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine Program

Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta

Medical Readers’ Theater promotes discussion of issues related to the doctor/ patient relationship, and social, ethical, and other humanities-based aspects of medicine.

Upcoming Performance:

A Face of Stone
By William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

Cast of Characters:
Narrator: Dr. Lisa Steblecki
Doctor: Dr. Ron Damant
Man: Peter Gill (Med 2010)
Woman: Sangeeta Jain (Class 2010)

Discussion Leader:
Dr. Verna Yiu

Tuesday, October 30, 2007
4:00 – 5:00 pm
Classroom D, 2F1.04 WMC

All are welcome!!!!

William Carlos Williams, a world-renowned poet (many will know his famous poem, "The Red Wheelbarrow"), also practiced medicine for 50 years among the working-class citizens of Rutherford, New Jersey, and wrote a number of short stories that used his experience in medicine to explore the lives of physicians and their patients. In this play a physician takes an instant dislike to a young immigrant couple who bring their infant to the office for a checkup. The story tracks the evolution of this initially poor physician/ patient relationship.
Many thanks to Todd L. Savitt, author of "Medical Readers' Theatre: A Guide and Scripts," for sharing his experiences of coordinating the East Carolina University's Medical Readers' Theatre Program with us.

Pamela Brett-MacLean, PhD
Co-Director, Arts & Humanities in Health & Medicine Program
Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry,
2-74 Zeidler Ledcor CentreEdmonton, AB Canada T6G 2X8Tel: (780) 492-0980 / Fax: (780) 492-5487 / Cell: (780) 708-3133
http://www.med.ualberta.ca/education/ahhm.cfm

... we need the arts to "absorb the new knowledge of the sciences and assimilate it to human needs, color it with human passions, transform it into the blood and bone of human nature." (... from Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Defense of Poetry")

Vincent Lam, Winner of 2006 Scotia Giller Prize, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, Video

Tonight I share with you a short reading and video featuring Dr. Vincent Lam, emergency room physician, author and winner of the 2006 Scotia Giller Prize for his book "Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures."

See video at:

http://www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/author_videos_lam.htm

More about the Scotia Bank Giller Prize http://www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/home.htm

Medicine, Art and Education/ Narrative Medicine, Poetry in Medical Education Offers a Place for Expression and Healing

Photo C. McLean

Narrative in Education and Practice at McGill Medical School

Maureen Rappaport MD FCCFP is a family doctor who splits her time between working in a busy community practice in Montreal, Quebec and teaching family medicine residents and medical students. She is also a writer of short stories and poetry mainly about caring for older persons and dying patients.

She believes in a balanced medical education that offers a place for the development of the mind as well as the nurturing of soul. "...We (our medical schools) have been criticized for a failure of heart, for lacking in the art of practice. Reading and writing short stories and poetry in a supportive group setting is one way for some students to discover what is in their hearts and to remember why they went into medicine."


Maureen Rappaport offers a creative writing course as an elective to fourth year medical
students at McGill University called "The Poetry of Practice." Students meet for two and a half hours twice a week for four weeks to read, write and discuss medical literature radically different from what is found in medical textbooks, clinical case notes and scientific journals.

She reports, "One cannot watch death and suffering and not be touched, but these feelings are hard to express, hard to articulate and many times impossible to acknowledge as students
run around the hospital not quite sure of what they're supposed to do as student doctors. For those who can access it poetry offers a language to express the inexpressible. ...For those who wrote, shared and listened in this context ..moments of bearing witness became medical acts. "
"The students in the two years I've held this course told me verbally and in written evaluations they found the course healing, a stress relieving activity, meaningful and a way to maintain
a sense of humanity, a way to resolve conflict and disturbing feelings and a wonderful way to bond with classmates and feel less alone about common experiences."