PED 6230 - Writing as Self Discovery: Using Literature to Prompt Reflection and Personal Insight

Students will meet via Zoom twice a week for up to 90 minutes to engage in guided reflection, using a process developed by Rita Charon, MD, PhD, founder of Narrative Medicine (see references below). Under the guidance of Dr. Richards, who worked closely with Dr. Charon for nearly a decade at Columbia, students will together read deeply a selected work of literature (short story, poem), discuss students’ reactions and insights to the literary work, and then write for less than 5 minutes to a given prompt. Dr. Richards will select literary works and prompts relevant to medical students’ lived experience. The course will end with an assignment to spent up to 2 hours writing a “signature reflection”—a reflection about prior reflections.