Guided creative writing sessions for health professionals

Overview

This four-session series is designed for writers with some experience seeking to improve their creative and reflective writing skills. Each session will focus on a particular literary genre (e.g. memoir, fiction, poetry) and feature brief lecture, small group discussion of published work, and an ongoing conversation about themes and questions in creative and reflective writing within the health humanities. Activities and exercises in every session will offer participants a space to write, read, try out new methods and approaches for prose and poetry, give each other feedback, and share and hone work with peers in a safe and encouraging environment. Offered via Zoom, sessions last 2.5 hours and take place every two weeks; in between, an online forum will allow for continued collaboration and connection.

Program Goal

To improve participants’ creative and reflective and writing and literary responsiveness in the NBM context.

Learning Objectives

• Ideally, after active engagement with the program participants will be better able to express themselves creatively and reflectively.
• They will have experienced detailed and guided exposure to published work discussed in such a way as to enhance their appreciation of its composition and to give them ideas and approaches to use in their own writing.
• They will have given and received editorial commentary on their creative and reflective work and that of their peers and through the workshop’s guidance gain an enhanced sense of ways to get better at giving and receiving feedback.
• They will have the opportunity to reflect on their own experience as healthcare practitioners and understand and give those experiences meaning through shaping them into narratives of various kind and sharing them with others.
• They will have become part of a supportive health humanities community and network to encourage and sustain their interest and experiments in narrative-based medicine.
• They will develop close reading and writing skills that will help in their own professional communication and, by enhancing their understanding of the narrative quality of patient encounters, may impact on their ability to provide sensitive and attentive patient care.
• They will be exposed to mentoring and pedagogical approaches for creative and reflective writing workshops that may allow them to lead workshops of this kind of their own in future.

Target Audience

Healthcare practitioners of every kind who have done some creative and/or reflective writing before are encouraged to attend.

Program Dates

The program starts October 26th, 2023 and will run for 4 sessions. Sessions will be held from 6:00pm-8:30pm (ET).

October 26, November 9, November 23, December 7

Fees

Course Fee: $885

All amounts are in Canadian Dollars (CAD $) and are subject to 13% HST.

Cancellation

Cancellations will be accepted until October 19, 2023 and are subject to a processing fee of $95 plus applicable taxes. Refunds will not be processed after this date.

Requests for cancellation must be made in writing to cpd.programs@utoronto.ca .

Registrations are not transferable.

The University of Toronto reserves the right to cancel events. Registrants will be notified at the earliest possible date in the event of a cancellation. Registration fees for events cancelled by the University will be refunded; however, the University will not be liable for any loss, damages or other expenses that such cancellations may cause.

Accreditation

Continuing Professional Development (CPD), Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, is fully accredited by the Committee on Accreditation of Continuing Medical Education (CACME), a subcommittee of the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS). This standard allows CPD to review and assess educational activities based on the criteria established by The College of Family Physicians of Canada and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (Royal College) has established agreements with each of the American Medical Association (AMA), and the European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (EACCME®) where activities approved for Royal College MOC Credits are eligible for conversion to AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ and UEMS-EACCME European CME Credit (ECMEC®) credits, respectively.