2010 AMSA / SNMA / APAMSA Health Equity Leadership Institute

The Danger of a Single Story:

Media Tools for Grassroots Organizing

Katherine D. Ellingtone-mail: ellkatd@gmail.com

Sunday, January 17, 2010Washington, DC

“America’s mission was, and still is, to take diversity and mold it into a

cohesive and coherent whole that would espouse virtues and values

essential to the maintenance of civil order. There is nothing easy about that

mission, but it is not Mission Impossible.” Barbara Jordan

The Danger of a Single Story:Media Tools for Grassroots Organizing

Overview

• Introduction

• Part one: your name, your story

• Part two: bearing witness, telling a story

• Part three: the danger of a single story

• Part four: media toolkit

• Q & A

The Danger of a Single Story:Media Tools for Grassroots Organizing

•Introduction

✓ Stories matter for humanity

✓ Narrative matters in medicine

✓ Your writing matters

“Writing is an invitation to change things, to battle mortality, and to connect the little picture with the big.” Fitzhugh Mullan, MD

• this program presents exemplars, who enable empathic care in the practice of medicine by offering meaningful stories from their experiences, imaginations and mindsets;

• ultimately, these stories provide practical and valuable lessons in the intersections of illness, disease, cure healing for clinicians, practitioners, patients, teachers, and students,

• physicians discuss their books, writing pursuits, work experiences and lives;

• an opportunity to listen in on their storytelling may inform your understanding in the making of physicians, lessons in patient-physician relationships and communication, professionalism, bioethical competence and health policy can be explored; and

• themes of physician advocacy and activism also emerge

Dr. Baruch

Dr. Firlik

Dr.MullanDr. Jauhar

Dr. Transue

Dr. Verghese

Physician-AuthorsDr.

Bergman

Dr. Chen

Dr. Ofri

Dr. Dean

Dr. Young

Dr. Peterkin

Dr. Klass

Dr.Watts

Katherine EllingtonHost

“Power remains in the basics of attentive listening, close reading and reflexive writing.”

The Danger of a Single Story:Media Tools for Grassroots Organizing

•Part one: your name, your story• Group formation

• Listening

✓ When applying for a green card a professor in genetics discovers a family secret. Paul Nurse is a Nobel Laureate and the President of Rockefeller University in New York City, where he also continues to do research in genetics and cell biology (Moth Podcast)

• Writing exercise #1

The Danger of a Single Story:Media Tools for Grassroots Organizing

•Part two: bearing witness, telling a story

• Reflections on reading of Dr. Khorana’s essay “Concordance”

• Listen to Dr. Murat Gunel’s storytelling on “The Art of Medicine”

• Writing exercise #2

The Danger of a Single Story:Media Tools for Grassroots Organizing

•Part two: bearing witness, telling a story

• Writing Exercise #2 - You have ten minutes.

• Think about an occurrence in which a patient, family member or friend of yours “fell between the cracks” while receiving health care. 

• It may also be a patient you helped care for as part of a medical team. 

• Write about the details of the event and how you felt about it.

The Danger of a Single Story:Media Tools for Grassroots Organizing

•Part three: the danger of a single story

• In Nigeria, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel Half of a Yellow Sun has helped inspire new, cross-generational communication about the Biafran war. In this and in her other works, she seeks to instill dignity into the finest details of each character, whether poor, middle class or rich, exposing along the way the deep scars of colonialism in the African landscape.

• Chimamanda Adichie’s “The Danger of a Single Story”

• Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

The Danger of a Single Story:Media Tools for Grassroots Organizing

•Part four: media toolkit

source: http://slakhan.gnif.org/

The Danger of a Single Story:Media Tools for Grassroots Organizing

Questions & Answers

The Danger of a Single Story:Media Tools for Grassroots Organizing

AMSA Book Discussion Webinarwith

Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, DLitt (Hon), FACP

Thursday, January 28, 20109:00 p.m. ET/8:00 p.m. CT/7:00 p.m. MT/6:00 p.m. PT

Book selection:

Medicine in Translation: Journeys with My Patients

Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, DLitt (Hon) is an attending physician at Bellevue Hospital and cofounder and

editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary Review. Her work has been published in Best American essays,

Best American Science Writing, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New England Journal of

Medicine, and Lancet, and has aired on National Public Radio. Her previous books are Singular

Intimacies and Incidental Findings. Ofri lives in New York City.

You can follow Dr. Ofri on Twitter, Facebook and visit her website at http://www.danielleofri.com/

Click here to register today!