Check it out, info: http://www.womensfilmfestival.com/aboutus.php

Spirituality and Health Focus for Calgary Conference

5th International Multidisciplinary Conference

on Spirituality and Health

Faculty of Medicine/ University of Calgary

Working Together for Optimal Health

Thursday, September 24 – Saturday, September 26, 2009
MacEwan Student Centre, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta

The University of Calgary in conjunction with The Canadian Research Institute of Spirituality and Healing will be hosting the 5th International Multidisciplinary Conference on Spirituality and Health.


Conference Objective: The conference aims to provide a diverse, multidisciplinary, multi-faith forum in order to address spirituality from a broad health focus.


Keynote speakers include:

• Arthur Frank PhD, Professor of Sociology, University of Calgary and author of At the Will of the Body; The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics; and The Renewal of Generosity: Illness, Medicine, and How to Live.

• Erminia Guarneri MD FACC, Founder and Medical Director of the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine, Scripps Health in La Jolla, California and author of The Heart Speaks.

• Lewis E. Mehl-Madrona, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine and author of Coyote Medicine: Lessons from Native America; Coyote Healing: Miracles from Native America; Coyote Wisdom: The Healing Power of Story; and Narrative Medicine: A Storied Approach to Health and Healing.
  

This 2 day conferences aims to provide a diverse multidisciplinary, multi-faith forum in order to address spirituality form a broad health focus. Session Topics Include: Christian Science, Palliative Care, HIV/AIDS, Yoga, Aboriginal Counselling, Public Health Spiritual Healing, Photography, Music & the Arts, Meditation, Depression, Cancer, Psycho-spirituality, Resiliency, and Mental Illnesses.

see PDF flyer

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: spirit@ucalgary.ca

Call for Film Submissions Ability Arts Festival

Call For Submissions

2009 "Projections" Film Forum:

The Abilities Arts Festival is seeking works by filmmakers with disabilities that exemplify excellence, innovation and creativity in film. Films that provoke, enlighten and offer diverse perspectives. Films that are innovative and entertaining. We welcome submissions of features, documentaries, or animation films that are either feature-length or shorts.

Submission Deadline: July 1, 2009

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.

Irwin Barker Performs at Cancer Patient Education Network Conference in Edmonton

I see that comedian, writer and performer Irwin Barker will be featured as a keynote at
The Cancer Patient Education Network Canada Conference (see PDF) in June.

Irwin Barker's style has been described as an analytical and unexpected approach to everyday life and work. In addition to being one of Canada's top stand up comedians, Irwin has an MA in Sociology and has taught at The University of Alberta and University of Manitoba.

In June 2007 he was diagnosed with cancer and, since that time, he has been sharing his cancer journey performing as an inspirational speaker at major conference and events.

Visit Irwin Barker's website here

See a short video clip from the film "That's my Time"
front row seats at Youtube

Photography and Medicine Project Announcements

We recently heard from Robert Kelley a medical student at Touro University College, Vallejo, CA.

"My name is Robert Kelley and I am a 4th year medical student at Touro University in Vallejo, CA. I wanted to share a special project we have been working on for the last 3 years, the Canvas of Hope. It is a collection of works of art created from microscopic images of breast cancer from our pathology department.

The project has received a wide range of responses from a variety of people (students, physicians, survivors, loved ones, artists, and the general public).

Most of the feedback at our gallery events has been positive. Those with cancer have appreciated our charitable pursuits and have served as advisors. We were able to educate the general public on breast cancer, self screening, and the fact that men can get the disease as well. Touro University has been very progressive and supportive of this project."

More about The Canvas of Hope

And still on the topic of photography and medicine, we also received information today about an upcoming photographic exhibition, The Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine, Program University of Alberta. CM

The Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine Program

University of Alberta

presents

Medical Education: Med 2011, Photographic Explorations

Wednesday, May 6

Christina Botros: Light Amidst Darkness

My experience shadowing the staff photographers of the University of Alberta Hospital enlightened me to the necessity for photographic imaging in the medical field. The ability to look at one’s documented process not only allows depiction of the healing process from the

strictest biological meaning, but also aids in the healing process, and doctor-patient relationship.

Jonathan Hickle: Exploring Hands-on Medical Learning Through Photography

The "Patient Partners in Arthritis" program is a patient-led teaching session. Patients with real arthritis findings volunteer their time to teach medical students how to perform a Musculoskeletal physical exam tailored to arthritis after taking an intensive training program.

My photographs are meant to capture the exchange of knowledge between patient-instructors and my colleagues.

12 noon – 1:00 pm

DSME Conference Room @ 2-74 Zeidler-Ledcor Bldg.

Medicine, Arts and Culture Important Intersections for New Advisory Board Member

posted by: Cheryl McLean
Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal

Journal Welcomes Dr. Michael Hutcheon to Advisory Board


The Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal (CCAHTE) has recently announced that Dr. Michael Hutcheon has joined the journal Advisory Board. Dr. Michael Hutcheon is Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto and Deputy Physician-in-Chief for Education, The University Health Network. His research training in respirology was in pulmonary physiology and lung mechanics both at The University of Toronto and the Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Hutcheon is a physician who has explored the intersections of the arts and health. Opera in medical education is a particular interest. He reports, "I have explored the meanings taken on by illnesses and the people who have them when medical information is interpreted in a social or cultural context. We have used opera as the cultural vehicle for this exploration. This has been my primary research interest for the past ten years."

Michael Hutcheon and collaborator Linda Hutcheon, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto, have published a number of articles and three books. Their work on the cultural construction of sexuality, gender and disease in opera has been published in a book entitled Opera: Desire, Disease, Death (1996). Their second book, a study of both the real and the represented operatic body entitled Bodily Charm: Living Opera, was published in 2000. They have also published articles in this area in journals such as The Cambridge Opera Journal, Opera Quarterly, and the University of Toronto Quarterly. Their latest collaborative book called Opera: The Art of Dying, was published by Harvard University Press in 2004. They are currently studying creativity and aging through the late style and later lives of nineteenth and twentieth century opera composers.

"Few art forms are as thoroughly dependent as is tragic opera upon desire, suffering and death as narrative and emotional staples. The body, the live singing body on stage, gives voice to the drama of the suffering person."
Michael Hutcheon, Linda Hutcheon

Read more here