The award-winning Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care reading and discussion program for health care providers is coming to Veteran’s Administration hospitals across the country thanks to a major grant to the Maine Humanities Council from the National Endowment for the Humanities!

Maryland is pleased to be one of 15 states selected to participate in this ground-breaking program with the VA.  MHC Program Officer Jean Wortman, Mary Marchetto, Director of Nursing Education and Research Center for VA Maryland Health Care Systems, and facilitator/scholar Matthew McCabe from Washington College recently returned from a national training institute in Chicago that featured keynote presentations by Major L. Tammy Duckworth, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs, and Brian Turner, a poet and Iraq war veteran.

“This is a very timely and important project,” noted Victoria Bonebakker, National Program Director of Literature & Medicine. “As health care professionals encounter increasing numbers of severely wounded Iraq veterans, many of them very young, while they continue to deal with the older and aging veterans of Vietnam and Korea, all amidst decreased resources and support, the opportunity to gain new perspectives on their work and their patients in community with their colleagues is vital.”

Of the program, one participant wrote:  “The readings, but more importantly the discussions, gave those of us who have not experienced combat a better understanding of the relationship between combat veterans and the VA as an institution, as well as some of the extreme situations combat vets experience.”

For more information about Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care in Maryland, contact Jean Wortman. Visit the Maine Humanities Council for more information about the VA Hospital program.

Tags: Literature and Medicine

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 11:38 am and is filed under Maryland Center for the Book, What's New at MHC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.