“These stories urge us to not just think, but to do. What can we do to make things better? How should we begin?” ~Pam Bellck, Pulitzer Prize-winning health reporter

Explore the intersection of story and community-building as a means a healthier future, and help us identify the very active stewardship required to get there—individually, collectively, and systemically. With radical listening and empathy as our tools, we will explore the role of narrative in helping to bring our experiences, our energy, and our view of a better future into focus. Likewise, we will creatively and curiously examine our own experience and agency during these unprecedented times in which the only constant is uncertainty. Let’s examine what it means to lean into the discomfort of ongoing uncertainty in order to imagine health and healthcare possibilities currently beyond our field of vision and clarify our role stewarding a better, more equitable and sustainable healthcare system. Through illuminating our experiences of helplessness, loss, illness, wellness, caretaking, injustice, and activism in relation to the experiences of others, we can deepen our perspective and begin to light a path forward.

Presented by the IAS Research and Creative Collaborative, the Project for Advancing Health Care Stewardship.

Featured Speakers

With fully interactive options for both virtual and in-person attendees, this symposium includes presentations from Dr. Jay Baruch of Brown University and Allison Coffelt, an author and non-clinician currently completing the Columbia University’s narrative medicine program.

Jay Baruch, M.D., is an emergency physician, medical educator, and novelist who will speak about the intersection between medicine and the arts—both how it informs his work emergency medicine, and how it could aid us in a deeper understanding of health and healthcare stewardship.

Allison Coffelt, M.A., will speak about narrative medicine in a broader context, and how the field can improve our relationship to and stewardship of our own health and healthcare system. She will also lead an afternoon narrative medicine workshop for those interested in diving more deeply into the relationship between narrative and wellness and/or those wishing to learn more about using the powerful techniques of narrative medicine in their own work or communities.

Participant Engagement

Small-group presentations will be followed by participant discussion and breakout sessions aimed at:

• Developing our definition of stewardship in the health and healthcare context
• Refining our understanding of the intersection between narrative, health, and action
• Clarifying our plans of action toward health stewardship (individually, collectively, and systemically)

We value your participation and look forward to visioning with you!

Questions about the Symposium?

Please contact the PAHS team at [email protected].
Learn more about the IAS Research and Creative Collaborative, Project for Advancing Health Care Stewardship at www.healthstewardship.org.