Humanities at the Heart of Health Care®

Literature & Medicine is a national award-winning reading and discussion program held in hospitals for health-care professionals that, as one participant wrote, “renews the heart and soul of health care.” Literature & Medicine discussions have helped health care professionals across the country improve their communication and interpersonal skills while increasing cultural awareness, empathy for patients, and job satisfaction. Created by the Maine Humanities Council in 1997, Literature & Medicine has now expanded to nineteen states from South Carolina to Hawaii.

In South Carolina, SC Humanities has run eight successful Literature & Medicine programs at Providence Hospital in Columbia (2006 – 2007), Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston (2006 – 2007), Columbia Area Mental Health Center (2005 – 2006 and 2006 – 2007), Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System (2009), Mary Black Hospital in Spartanburg (2009), and Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in Charleston (2009 – 2010 and 2010 – 2011).

For more information about Literature & Medicine in South Carolina, please contact T.J. Wallace at 803-771-2477.

To read about the origins of the Literature & Medicine program and to see the official newsletter, please visit the Web site of the Maine Humanities Council.

Sample Curriculum Titles:

The Hours by Michael Cunningham
“Diabetes” by James Dickey
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
The Plague by Albert Camus
“A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman