International Health Humanities Network Membership

I am a consultation liaison psychiatrist at a busy public hospital, and part of the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center clinical faculty. My undergranduate education centered largely in the biological sciences, but I gravitated towards literature, social science and the arts. Eventually I switched from internal medicine to psychitary, where I specialize in working with medically ill patients, and especially with medical problems including physical trauma, substance use, HIV, and dementia and delirium. I sought additional training in ethics and the law through a masters program in the study of law. My educational efforts range from instructing medical students and residents in interviewing techniques that draw on narrative practices to strengthen therapeutic alliances, critical thinking, public health ethics, and the social sciences and medical practice. I am very involved in our medical center's focus on narrative medicine as well as cultural issues in health care. I great enjoy utilizing essays, short stories, poem, graphic novels, painting and film for discussion with our trainees. Conferences on the health humanities have been some of the most creative, enriching and rewarding events in my academic life, and I am grateful to the innovative and passionate efforts of my very diverse colleagues to explore the interplay of medical practice and the humanities.