VOLVOX: Making Narrative Medicine Happen Alumni Speaker Series

Listening Both Ways: Joining Narrative & Structural Competence for Health Justice with Brianna Cusanno August-Rae,PhD, CPA '20

Narrative medicine is deeply committed to listening to stories of injustice and forming bonds of affiliation to create social change. Yet, narrative medicine does not always incorporate analysis of social location and structure. 

In this session, August-Rae presents a novel curriculum that brings together narrative medicine with structural competency, a movement that analyzes the root causes of health inequities and equips practitioners to act for structural change. This union lets us listening closely to individual stories while maintaining awareness of how personal stories fit within macro landscapes of structural in/justice. 

We will cover the design of a curriculum for pre-health undergraduate students, course evaluation strategies, and results of preliminary evaluations. We will include ample time for discussion of your perspectives, challenges, and approaches to teaching and learning.