A podcast project by Foundational Certificate alum shares experiences that shaped careers in medicine.
Posted: Monday November 18, 2024
All Lab Updates
A compassionate reflection on medical training by Foundational Certificate alum Lucie Dubes.
Posted: Sunday November 10, 2024
Foundational Certificate alum Kate Kusiak reflects on her daughter’s resiliency in this original poem.
Posted: Friday November 8, 2024
Alisha Kaplan reads an original poem developed out of a daily practice that consisted of writing a haiku each morning during a period of her life navigating graduate school and health.
Posted: Monday October 7, 2024
Poet and NBM Lab member, Alisha Kaplan, discusses her work, narrative-based medicine teaching, writing tips, and connections to her life on Bela Farm.
Posted: Friday October 4, 2024
Paula Holmes-Rodman reflects on her mother’s passing in this poignant reading of a creative non-fiction piece.
Posted: Monday September 23, 2024
Foundational Certificate alum Paula Holmes-Rodman shares her journey towards narrative-based medicine and her current work in the field.
Posted: Monday September 23, 2024
In this guest piece for the NBM Lab, Dr. Muiris Houston examines the rush to artificial intelligence (AI) in the medical context, and raises questions about its use in Narrative-Based Medicine.
Posted: Wednesday September 11, 2024
An overview of Alan Bleakley’s recent book publications with Routledge that explore the ethics, aesthetics, and politics of medical humanities and the intersection of medicine and poetry.
Posted: Wednesday September 11, 2024
Renowned narrative medicine expert John Launer shares thoughts about his chapter on supervising practitioners who have experienced trauma in the new edited collection Narrative Medicine: Trauma and Ethics.
Posted: Wednesday July 31, 2024
Case Repertory is a new initiative that seeks to re-imagine the traditional case report by highlighting the role of Narrative-Based Medicine in practice.
Posted: Wednesday July 31, 2024
An illness memoir and much more, Sleep is Now a Foreign Country seeks to break down the barriers between those diagnosed with mental illness and the broader community.
Posted: Sunday July 21, 2024
A creative reading delivered at our April 2024 Literary Evening with the NBM Lab.
Posted: Monday July 8, 2024
An excerpt from Chapter 15 of Cancer Confidential: Backstage Dramas in the Radiation Clinic (University of Toronto Press, 2022) read by Charles Hayter at our Literary Evening.
Posted: Monday July 8, 2024
A short memoir in two sections. Reflections on events that took place at an annual national student sport event when I was a track and field team member and a medical student.
Posted: Monday July 8, 2024
“Intentions” is a piece touching on a personal experience, and my way of coping with a health journey.
Posted: Monday July 8, 2024
Allan Peterkin, program director at the Narrative-Based Medicine Lab, shares how he weaves his passion for medicine and literature throughout his professional career.
Posted: Tuesday June 11, 2024
Upreet Dhaliwal reads a poem from her collection InVerse Medicine: Poems About Things Often Left Unsaid.
Posted: Monday June 3, 2024
Upreet Dhaliwal reads an original poem reflecting on how relationships ebb and flow.
Posted: Monday June 3, 2024
Conor Mc Donnell reads an original poem that opens his first poetry collection Recovery Community.
Posted: Monday June 3, 2024
Conor Mc Donnell reads an original poem that considers human anatomy from a different perspective.
Posted: Monday June 3, 2024
Conor Mc Donnell reads an original, ekphrastic poem meditating on Francis Bacon’s painting “Study for the Nurse in Battleship Potemkin.”
Posted: Monday June 3, 2024
Foundational Certificate alum Conor Mc Donnell reflects on his introduction to narrative-based medicine and the value that writing has brought to his personal and professional life.
Posted: Friday May 31, 2024
Mireille Norris (Temerty Medical Education Black Health Theme Lead) shares how we can continue to engage in important dialogue year-round through the arts and humanities.
Posted: Friday May 31, 2024
Foundational Certificate alum Upreet Dhaliwal discusses her professional journey towards narrative-based medicine with our program leads in this illuminating conversation.
Posted: Friday May 31, 2024
Hesam’s works represented here are based on a storytelling process that considers significant health and medical topics around him and how he reflects on them.
Posted: Monday May 6, 2024
Advanced Certificate learner and family physician Amita Dayal publishes a children’s book that draws upon her cherished family experiences and memories.
Posted: Saturday May 4, 2024
John spoke to us about the Conversations Inviting Change (CIC) trainings he co-originated, which are narrative-based models for interactional skills used in a variety of encounters and situations.
Posted: Wednesday May 1, 2024
The NBM Lab community gathered in Toronto on Wednesday, April 10, 2024 to celebrate a wonderful year of narrative
Posted: Tuesday April 30, 2024
Leighton Schreyer receives prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to continue work in narrative medicine.
Posted: Thursday March 28, 2024
The WCC team shares the methodology that informed a series of writing workshops for patients at a Toronto-area hospital and insights gained from this model of writing in the community.
Posted: Wednesday March 13, 2024
Mireille Norris, Medical Education Black Health Theme Lead, shares recommendations for art, music, dance, and food we can experience this Black History Month around Toronto and at home.
Posted: Tuesday February 6, 2024
Healthcare practitioners are often taught to approach and manage their patients’ bodies at the expense of their own. Becoming sick oneself, or seeing a family member fall ill, can be a traumatizing and bewildering experience. How can we remember to tend to our own bodies as healthcare practitioners? How can narrative help us remember — […]
Posted: Friday January 26, 2024
Conor Mc Donnell is a Staff Anesthesiologist at SickKids Hospital and Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine at the University of Toronto. His latest poetry collection, This Insistent List published by Mansfield Press, is out now.
Posted: Monday January 22, 2024
Read Foundational Certificate alum Amita Dayal’s latest creative reflection published in CMAJ. In what began as a draft in Writing Health-Themed Articles during the winter of 2023, Dayal reflects on her experience providing MAiD as a family physician.
Posted: Tuesday January 2, 2024
Miriam Colleran, Foundational Certificate alum and palliative care physician in Ireland, joined Karen Gold and Damian Tarnopolsky for a special in person conversation while she was in Toronto this fall. She shares her introduction to narrative-based medicine and discusses how engaging with narrative methods has changed her practice. Enjoy the conversation:
Posted: Thursday December 14, 2023
Listen to Miriam Colleran read “The Cherry Blossom Tree” published in Sparks of Calliope: A Journal of Poetic Observations.
Posted: Thursday December 14, 2023
Listen to Miriam Colleran read “Differently” published in Sparks of Calliope: A Journal of Poetic Observations
Posted: Thursday December 7, 2023
For many of us, fall is synonymous with colour change, cooler temperatures, and maybe getting lost in a good book on a crisp evening. This week, we’re looking back at this time last fall when we hosted Jürgen Pieters.
Posted: Friday November 24, 2023
Lisa Mitchell, Geriatrician and participant of Writing Health-Themed Articles in winter 2023, asks us to reflect on stereotypes surrounding older age and ageing through the lens of an children’s television show in this piece for The Conversation.
Posted: Monday November 13, 2023
Hear from our Curriculum Lead, Creative Lead, and Foundational Certificate alums about what makes the Narrative-Based Medicine Lab community so special.
Posted: Friday November 3, 2023
Ronna Bloom, facilitator of our upcoming Facilitate a Writing Workshop in Your Healthcare Community offering, was featured on The Lift Podcast produced by Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. Sitting down with Dr. Mary Elliott, Ronna shares her experience bringing poetry to healthcare workers and speaks about her work with poetry, healthcare professionals, spontaneity, vulnerability, and need. […]
Posted: Wednesday November 1, 2023
Members of the NBM Lab community gathered for a special, in-person celebration on Wednesday, September 27 at the Art Gallery of Ontario for an evening filled with connection and creativity. The evening began with reflections from Patricia Houston, Vice Dean, Medical Education, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, on the evolution of Narrative-Based Medicine programming in Continuing […]
Posted: Saturday September 30, 2023
“Here’s a poem. It might speak to what you’re experiencing now that hasn’t been articulated yet,” said Ronna Bloom as she prescribed poems to patients and staff in the halls of Mount Sinai Hospital. Poetry has gradually claimed a place in today’s patient-centered medicine. Ronna, a trained psychotherapist and the first Poet-in-Residence at Mount Sinai […]
Posted: Thursday September 21, 2023
Welcome to the Narrative-Based Medicine Lab (NBM Lab) at Continuing Professional Development, Temerty Faculty of Medicine — Canada’s home for teaching, research, and innovation in Narrative-Based Medicine. The NBM Lab is a place to build community and to foster international collaboration and knowledge exchange across clinical and artistic disciplines. The last couple of years have […]
Posted: Thursday September 21, 2023
Welcome to the Narrative-Based Medicine Lab (NBM Lab) at Continuing Professional Development, Temerty Faculty of Medicine — Canada’s home for teaching, research, and innovation in Narrative-Based Medicine. The NBM Lab is a place to build community and to foster international collaboration and knowledge exchange across clinical and artistic disciplines. As human beings, we are wired […]
Posted: Monday July 17, 2023
Our Narrative-Based Medicine offerings this season span resilience, creative and reflective writing, workshop facilitation, and more.
Posted: Monday June 5, 2023
Posted: Monday May 29, 2023
Paula Holmes-Rodman, anthropologist and alum of our Foundational Certificate, reflects on her mother’s passing in this creative non-fiction piece published in Intima: The Journal of Narrative Medicine.
Posted: Monday May 1, 2023
Carrie Bernard, Assistant Professor in the Department of Family & Community Medicine at the University of Toronto and Foundational Certificate alum, reflects on caring for patients in the ICU during the COVID-19 pandemic in this creative piece published in the CMAJ on National Physicians’ Day.
Posted: Monday May 1, 2023
Vincent M. Figueredo traces the evolution of our understanding of the heart from the dawn of civilization to the present. More Information from the Publisher
Posted: Saturday April 1, 2023
Read Nick Pimlott’s latest op-ed in The Globe & Mail on the urgency of addressing physician burnout and emphasizing humanism in medicine.
Posted: Saturday March 18, 2023
Neurologist Suvendrini Lena spoke to U of T News about her path to playwriting, how she connects medicine and the arts, and her latest production.
Posted: Monday March 13, 2023
Allan Peterkin is the recipient of the 2023 Health Humanities Consortium Visionary Award. He was recognized for his leadership in the field of health humanities, far-reaching contributions both nationally and globally, and mentorship to health professionals. Nominators noted that his “career has been one of global achievement and accomplishment, all with great heart and light.” […]
Posted: Wednesday February 15, 2023
Ed Cohen draws on his own experience with Crohn’s disease to consider how Western medicine’s turn from an “art of healing” towards a “science of medicine” deeply affects both medical practitioners and patients. More information from the publisher.
Posted: Monday January 30, 2023
Rory O’Sullivan’s story in CFP is the winner of the 2022 Mimi Divinsky Award for History and Narrative in Family Medicine.
Posted: Wednesday January 25, 2023
Allan Peterkin, Program Director of the Foundational Certificate in Narrative-Based Medicine, was featured in this Globe & Mail story on the therapeutic power of literature. Read about the fascinating origins, and resurgence, of bibliotherapy.
Posted: Saturday December 24, 2022
News from our Foundational in Narrative-Based Medicine Creative Lead! Damian Tarnopolsky’s short story “Like Triumph” is the runner-up for the 2022 Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence at The Puritan. Congratulations, Damian! Read the story here.
Posted: Tuesday December 6, 2022
Allan Peterkin speaks about the growing role of the arts and humanities in medical education, and the establishment of Canada’s first endowed Chair in Health Humanities at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine in this story by Deanna Cheng for the Art Issue of U of T Med Magazine.
Posted: Thursday December 1, 2022
Judy Dercksen reflects on the value of community over the course of her writing journey as a family physician in this First Person piece for The Globe & Mail.
Posted: Wednesday November 30, 2022
Toronto-based physician Jean Marmoreo and journalist Johanna Schneller share their experiences being at the forefront of the MAiD movement in Canada in this interview with CTV’s The Social.
Posted: Monday November 28, 2022
Shortly after completing training as a radiation oncologist, Charles Hayter’s father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He soon found that his medical training did not prepare him for his new reality. Hayter talks about the inspiration for his new novel, Cancer Confidential: Backstage Dramas in the Radiation Clinic, and his writing process in this interview […]
Posted: Friday November 4, 2022
Polly Morland writes about the importance of longitudinal, primary care physician-patient relationships in rural England and the role stories play in those encounters in this piece for The Guardian.
Posted: Monday August 15, 2022
A great piece in the The New Yorker in which Jerome Groopman reflects on the literary tradition of physician writing and how storytelling offers physicians the opportunity to process their experiences. New Yorker Website
Posted: Monday July 25, 2022
Nick Pimlott, an academic family physician at Women’s College Hospital and in the Department of Family & Community Medicine at the University of Toronto, reflects on the unique and valuable features of in-person learning and patient interactions for physicians-in-training. Read the op-ed here.
Posted: Saturday June 11, 2022
The latest creative reflection piece in CMAJ by Daniel Rayson, medical oncologist and Foundational Certificate alum.
Posted: Tuesday February 22, 2022
In this piece for Catapult, Anthony Ocampo shares the surprising benefits that come with writing creatively as an academic. For doctoral students engaged in research, creative writing can reveal diverse ways of telling stories and sharing ideas with broader audiences.
Posted: Wednesday January 19, 2022
Daniel Rayson, medical oncologist and alum of our Foundational Certificate, reflects on the physician-patient relationship in “Cardio-Oncology.” Journal of Clinical Oncology
Posted: Friday September 10, 2021
In this piece in CFP, family physician and Foundational Certificate alum Amita Dayal reflects on practicing medicine during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Posted: Sunday September 5, 2021
Jennifer Blake, Adjunct Professor of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at the University of Toronto and alum of our Foundational Certificate has a poem published in the anthology: Poetry for Sexual and Reproductive Justice. Read her poem “Infertile” here.
Posted: Sunday September 5, 2021
Conor McDonnell’s debut poetry collection, Recovery Community, was published in early 2021. Exploring the connections between trauma, illness, and loss, the poems in this collection meditate on doubt, conflict, and resilience. McDonnell is a pediatric anesthesiologist at The Hospital for Sick Children and alum of our Foundational Certificate. Read more from the publisher.
Posted: Sunday February 14, 2021