‘Examined Life’ conference links literary, medical communities
The UI Carver College of Medicine’s Writing Program continues to spark new collaborations linking the literary and medical communities. Its conference, The Examined Life: Writing and the Art of Medicine, is set to take place April 23-25 on The University of Iowa campus and will feature readings and presentations by poet Marvin Bell, dramatist and composer Rinde Eckert, physician-author Daniel Mason and UI Writers Workshop graduate S.L. Wisenberg.
A full conference schedule, descriptions of the workshops and biographies of workshop and featured presenters can be found at the conference’s Web site. Margaret LeMay-Lewis, coordinator of the Writing Program, encouraged interested individuals to register for the event, noting that UI faculty and staff receive a reduced rate and UI students may register for free. The featured presentations will be open to the public at no cost.
Physicians, medical students, educators, writers, editors and anyone with an interest in creative writing and medicine will find useful and engaging content in the conference’s workshops and presentations. Topics range from the use of reflective writing in medical education and practice, to the value of creative expression for physicians, to medical themes in serious literature, to how to get one’s work published. Presenters from the UI and across the country include physicians, writers and teachers of writing, medical students and editors and publishers.
The conference also will include writing workshops facilitated by established teachers of writing and will conclude with a reading by participants of their work.
This is the second year for The Examined Life, which has taken its place as one of just a few similar events across the country. “Support from across the university last year was inspiring,” LeMay-Lewis said, with the conference helping to “establish conversations between the Carver College of Medicine and the rest of the writing community.”
LeMay-Lewis looks forward to continuing those conversations at this year’s conference, she said. She noted the closing plenary session will feature a panel of representatives from the University of Iowa Press, the Iowa Review literary magazine, the Iowa Writers Workshop and the Carver College of Medicine discussing the place of writing in “the interdisciplinary spirit of The University of Iowa.”
The University of Iowa Press is a sponsor of the event and is working to build its catalogue of titles in medical-themed literature. Other sponsors are the UI Carver College of Medicine, UI Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa State Bank & Trust Co., Richard M. Caplan, M.D., and the Iowa Review.