What is the value of having medical students engage in creative production as part of their learning? Creating something new requires medical students to take risks and even to fail--something they tend to be neither accustomed to nor comfortable with doing. “Making stuff” can help students prepare for such failures in a controlled environment that doesn’t threaten their professional identities. Furthermore, doing so can facilitate students becoming resilient and creative problem-solvers who strive to find new ways to address vexing questions. (...) Though creating something new can be fun, this is not the main outcome of interest. Rather, the principle reason we recommend devoting precious curricular time to creative endeavors is because it helps medical students become better doctors. (shrink)

A collection of original comics engaging fundamental issues in medical ethics, including patient autonomy, informed consent, unconscious bias, mandated reporting of suspected abuse, confidentiality, medical mistakes, surrogate decision-making, and futility.

This essay explores key concerns surrounding “coming out” as a person with illness and addresses important professional and social considerations for those who are closeted in various kinds of illness. Using central tenets of Queer Theory and Disability and Cultural Studies as a theoretical base, I examine the politics of coming out in the specific context of my lived experience during the 2002 NEH Summer Institute, “Medicine, Literature, and Culture” While such an environment might foster unusual candor about personal illness (...) experience, I discovered that the choice to come out as a person with chronic, non-infectious disease (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) was nevertheless complicated in interesting ways. (shrink)