creative nonfiction - writing medical narratives - 12-week online course

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Writing Medical Narratives New 12-Week Online Course


Other Online Courses Writing the Personal Essay Advanced Memoir and Personal Essay Narrative JournalismFoundations of Creative Nonfiction

Writing Medical Narratives - New 12-Week Online Course

Overview

This twelve-week online class will guide all types of medical professionals (doctors, nurses, researchers, aides, social workers, etc.) through the various skills needed to write and publish narratives--personal stories of their experiences (and those of others in the field). We will cover every step in the writing process, from brainstorming to researching to writing to revising, as well as the steps needed to pitch and publish an article or essay. Our instructors--experienced writers of medical narratives and creative nonfiction--will communicate with participants through a combination of written lectures, written feedback, and email. In addition, the class will include three 1-hour phone conferences. Speakers will be Manoj Jain, Jason Lewis, and Ellen Ficklen.

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Week 1: What is creative nonfiction?

This week we’ll explore the basic questions that drive this genre of writing: What is creative nonfiction? What are medical narratives, and why do we need them? Hospitals and medical schools around the world are beginning to recognize the power of narrative to inform, motivate, and teach. Every medical study has its own story. How do we find the difference between the story and the study? How do we make this story into a compelling piece of writing? The first live chat for the class will take place during this week.



Week 2: Reading like a writer

Most writers read for pleasure a great deal, and medical professionals read to keep current on the latest advances in medicine. But reading like a writer is a different skill, one that will allow you to take a piece of creative writing and understand how the author constructed it, then apply that knowledge to your own work. During this week we’ll dissect two different types of medical narratives: short pieces, such as might be found in a national newspaper, and longer, more involved narratives such as those featured in Creative Nonfiction, The New Yorker, and other long-format magazines. Participants will learn the basic structure and components of these articles and how to weave them together.



Week 3: Shaping your narrative

You may not know how to take the experiences from your career that have affected you deeply and shape them into a defined narrative—a story or plot that drives your writing and keeps a reader’s interest. The materials from this week will guide participants as they turn one or more personal experiences into a narrative piece of writing. During this week participants will also submit their assignment, an essay or newspaper article of up to 3,500 words, to the instructor for review. Participants will also have the option to share their work with other class members for peer review.



Week 4: The people at the heart of the narrative

Medical narratives are usually first and foremost stories about people, so helping your readers to care about the people in your writing is an important element of creating an effective narrative. During this week we’ll discuss writing techniques to help portray the complexity and humanity of the subjects in your writing.



Week 5: Incorporating Research

While you want your writing to have a strong narrative drive, you’ll also want to make use of your expertise and include medical, scientific, and/or professional information in this larger narrative structure. This week we’ll talk about how to incorporate scientific studies, statistics, scholarly quotes, and your personal knowledge into your narrative writing. We’ll also discuss how to find additional information through research, either by contacting expert sources or by looking for reliable information on the internet. Participants will submit their second assignment, an essay or newspaper article of up to 3,500 words, to the instructor for review during this week, and will also have the option to share their work for peer review.



Week 6: Using detail effectively

Using specific and evocative detail is the key to creating a narrative that feels “real” to the reader, and that therefore holds the reader’s interest. During this week we’ll discuss how to use detail to create more convincing and moving writing. We will also explore ways to describe the more technical processes of the medical world in layman’s terms.



Week 7: Incorporating a theme

A good narrative must be more than a series of facts, and even more than an interesting series of events—it must encapsulate some larger idea or meaning that will move the reader to emote, think, and act. This week we’ll discuss ways to emphasize existing themes in your writing, in an effort to create narratives that readers from a wide variety of backgrounds can identify with, and to share the insights you have that have not been captured in the print and web media before.



Week 8: Writing a pitch

Taking the first step toward publication can be intimidating, so during this week we’ll tackle that challenge as a group. The class materials will discuss how to write a formal pitch for a nonfiction piece that can be submitted to an editor, and then how and where to send those pitches. Each student will write a pitch and submit it to an editor for consideration at the end of the week.



Week 9: Ethical and legal concerns

Ethical concerns about accuracy, privacy, and bias apply to all creative nonfiction writers, but are particularly important in medical writing, where patients’ rights are a special concern. In this class we’ll review HIPPA and other legal guidelines for writing about patients and clients. We’ll also discuss some of the common ethical quandaries that arise when writing about other people, and various ways to present the lives of these people in your writing.



Week 10: Your writing and revision process

The process of taking a piece of writing from initial inspiration through drafts to a finished product differs for each writer. This week we’ll discuss some approaches to brainstorming, drafting, and revising that will help participants craft a plan for their own best practices. We will also briefly discuss how to work with an editor after you’ve created a polished draft. Participants will submit their third and final assignment, a piece of writing up to 3,500 words, during this week.



Week 11: How to write in medicine without losing your job

Sometimes we as writers feel bold as we put our initial thoughts down on paper, but lose courage when it comes time to share or publish a piece. In this class we’ll focus on methods for writers who need to feel more comfortable with publicizing their opinions. We’ll also consider ways to write about controversial subjects without infuriating your opposition or jeopardizing your professional integrity.



Week 12: Publishing and marketing your work

This week will be devoted to steps for building a presence as a writer and marketing and publishing your work. We’ll discuss best practices for submitting work for publication. We’ll also explore other ways to create a publishing platform and market your ideas, via websites, blogs, and other methods



About the Instructors

Manoj Jain, MD MPH is an infectious disease physician, a writer, and a national leader in healthcare quality improvement. Dr. Jain writes regularly for the Washington Post, and the Commercial Appeal (Memphis newspaper). His writings also appear in the New York Times and the Times of India. He received his engineering, doctorate, and public health degree from Boston University. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank on HIV, and has been interviewed by CNN, and National Public Radio. Over the past 15 years Dr. Jain has given over a 150 talks, and published numerous scientific articles, chapters and books.


http://www.mjainmd.com/





Theresa Brown, RN, is the author of Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between (HarperStudio, 2010). She received her BSN from the University of Pittsburgh and a PhD in English from the University of Chicago. Brown is a regular contributor to the New York Times blog “Well.” Her essay “Perhaps Death is Proud; More Reason to Savor Life” is included in Best American Science Writing 2009 and Best American Medical Writing 2009. Theresa is a Board Member of the Center for Health Media and Policy at the Bellevue School of Nursing at Hunter College. She is also an Advisory Board Member for Scrubs Magazine, which won the 2010 Maggie Award for Best New Publication from the Western Publishing Association.


http://www.theresabrownrn.com/

http://www.theresabrownrn.com/



Sayantani DasGupta, MD, MPH is an assistant clinical professor of pediatrics and a core faculty member of the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. She also teaches in the graduate program in Health Advocacy at Sarah Lawrence College, and is a prose faculty member in the summer writing conference Writing the Medical Experience at Sarah Lawrence College. Dr. DasGupta is author of Her Own Medicine: A Woman's Journey from Student to Doctor (1999), and co-editor of Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies (2007). Her work has appeared in journals including The Lancet, JAMA, and The Journal of Medical Humanities, and her essay “Intern” is included in the anthology Becoming a Doctor. She is an associate editor of the journal Literature and Medicine.


http://www.sayantanidasgupta.com/






Jason T. Lewis directs the Writing and Humanities program at the University of Iowa’s Carver College of Medicine. He is the managing editor of the university’s medical narrative publication, the Examined Life Journal, and the author of the novel The Fourteenth Colony. Lewis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.





Ellen Ficklen is a senior editor at Health Affairs, where she is the editor of Narrative Matters, the journal’s first-person essay section. She is a co-editor of "Narrative Matters: The Power of the Personal Essay in Health Policy," published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Previously Ellen held a number of editorial positions and has written widely, including articles for the Washington Post, the New York Times, USA Weekend, the Baltimore Sun, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Saveur, and Preservation. She also has produced editorial projects for the National Geographic Society, American Rivers, and National Public Radio. Ellen has an M.A. in writing (nonfiction) from Johns Hopkins University


http://healthaffairs.org/blog/author/eficklen/




Participants Feedback (previous online classes)

David Reynolds The teacher's feedback as well as some from the students has been really helpful. It's obvious she's studied it a lot and has good ideas. I've enjoyed most of the readings too. The interview with Gay Talese was really interesting and I never would have seen the Paris review if not for the class. I guess my only suggestion for improvement would be more study of different types of structures, although maybe that's coming later in the class.

Jamie Babcock The feedback, both the instructor's and the peer review, is very helpful. Giving feedback to peers really helps me think critically about not only their writing, but my own as well. I particularly appreciated the safe environment created in the class. I was supported in my novice attempts at writing by both the instructor and my classmates. The readings were one of the highlights. I am hungry for more great nonfiction writing.

Marion Lane Particularly liked the assignments and the readings and lecture in preparation for the assignments; liked trying new techniques; and liked getting really good feedback from the instructor and generally well-qualified classmates.



Participants Feedback (previous online classes)

Gene Pepper I liked everything about the two classes I took. The Immersion Class coming after the Personal Essay class will help me for the rest of my life, to know how to dig down in my research in writing better stories and essays. I think Leslie [instructor] did a marvelous job working with me. She and Anjali [instructor] have helped prepare me for my MFA studies starting in one week.

Anne Hodges White Liked: Anjali's [instructor] lectures -- well written, thoughtful, comprehensive, very helpful; the readings - I was introduced to writers I hadn't read, methods I didn't know; Anjali's critiques -- thorough, thoughtful, intelligent, and creative. She's a real pro.

Gene Wilburn I liked the readings and discussion of the readings, and I especially liked the assignments. I liked that you could either follow the suggested assignment, or substitute one of your own. The peer reviews were helpful and the instructor feedback was excellent.



Registration

For registration please contact, online course coordinator Anjali Sachdeva at [email protected] or visit http://www.CreativeNonfiction.org

Save $25 anytime when you register with a friend.Registration includes a 4-issue subscription to Creative Nonfiction.

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Other Online Courses

Writing the Personal Essay

Advanced Memoir and Personal Essay

Narrative Journalism

Foundations of Creative Nonfiction

For registration please contact, online course coordinator Anjali Sachdeva at [email protected] or visit http://www.CreativeNonfiction.org










mailto:[email protected]

http://goo.gl/Um6zG

creative nonfiction - writing medical narratives - 12-week online course

Health & Medicine