Mission Statement

The Foundation for the Humanities in Medicine promotes humanistic qualities among healthcare professionals; furthers the complex process of healing by teaching the therapeutic effects of deep writing; equips poets and writers who have a focus on illness and healing with the tools of craft and poetic vision necessary to add a high quality body of work to the genre of health writing; and produces video documentaries that illuminate our understanding of poetry and healing.
 
 The Foundation furthermore…
 
supports basic research into the effectiveness of tools of humanistic medicine and their impact upon the healing process;

publishes essays and creative literature on the subject of writing and healing through the University of California Medical Humanities Press;

and facilitates lectures at medical and nursing schools to address the current state of humanism in medicine and to promote creative ideas to balance the educational curriculum.
 

Studies

The “Attention Shift Study,” in collaboration with Professor Mardi Horowitz at the Langley Porter Institute of Psychiatry, demonstrated a lessening of anxiety and intrusive thought disturbance by the use of writing exercises, Japanese painting sessions, and Indian breathing techniques in individuals from the UCSF medical center suffering from early meltdown syndrome.

The “Poetry at the Bedside Study” demonstrated a trend to diminished anxiety in patients undergoing outpatient colonoscopy procedures when exposed to poems prior to the procedure.
 

board members

Joan Baranow, PhD

John Fox, CPT

William Goodson, MD