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DAWN: Designing a Workshop in Narrative Medicine

A Presentation by Kristen Zeller, MD and Aimee Mepham, MFA

Friday, September 18, 2026

Narrative Medicine Workshop Components

Dr. Rita Charon argues that narrative competence is developed through the reading of literature and the practice of reflective writing, often implemented in the form of narrative medicine workshops. Conducting these workshops has revealed that the practice of narrative medicine has not only potential benefits for patients, but for medical students and healthcare professionals.Workshops are made up of the following components.

Close Reading

  • Facilitator chooses a “creative text” – this can be a poem, a prose piece, a painting, a film clip, a song, etc.
  • A group closely explores or “reads” the text together, observing and commenting with specific detail.

Writing

  • Group participants will be asked to write for five (5) minutes in response to a prompt given to them by the facilitator. 
  • There is no “right” or “wrong” way to respond to the prompt, and spelling and grammar are not important. 
  • Participants are encouraged to write by hand if they are able/comfortable doing so.

Reflecting

  • The group will have an opportunity to share what they have written or on the general experience of writing to the prompt.
  • Group members are encouraged to comment on what they hear and notice in the reader’s piece, but critique is not the goal.

Designing A Workshop in Narrative Medicine

Learning Objective

  • In order to determine your learning objectives, you will need to identify:
  • Your audience.
  • The needs of your audience.
  • What you want your audience to be able to do after the workshop (this can be specific and manageable).
  • Your creative text.
  • Learning objectives can but are not always shared with participants.

Discussion Question

  • Observation: Sensory detail: Sight/Sound/Smell/Taste/Feeling.
  • Form: Pieces/tools of creation: Image/Metaphor/Color/Time/Shape. 
  • Voice: Speaker and Point of View: The speaker/intimacy.
  • Mood: The way a creative text feels.
  • Motion: The journey of the text.

What is a question that opens up the initial conversation? What question propels it further?

Writing Prompt

  • “In the shadow” of the text – your prompt can be inspired by the creative text you discussed.
  • A “Goldilocks” prompt – not too specific, not too broad – a reflective writing prompt is not like a prompt for an essay, you are not answering a specific question.
  • A useful construction to consider is, “Write about a time when…”.

Designing A Workshop in Narrative Medicine

Learning Objective

  • What is a potential learning objective for this piece in a workshop for medical residents? 
  • Example: By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to articulate how reading and discussing a poem in a group setting can provide an outlet for identifying how stress is affecting their life and work.

Discussion Question

  • Example: In which direction did you read the poem? How does that affect your understanding of the poem? Your experience of the poem?

Writing Prompt

  • Is there a writing prompt “in the shadow” of the text that suggests itself from this text?
  • Example: Write about a time when you felt pulled in multiple directions.
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
c. 1560

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by William Carlos Williams

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings’ wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

From Collected Poems: 1939-1962, Volume II by William Carlos Williams, published by New Directions Publishing Corp. © 1962 by William Carlos Williams. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Icarus by Mumford and Sons

Lyrics:
See through the smoke
Just a card in play that she wrote my name on
Breathing in the cold
How could she throw me away? At least wait ’til I have wings on
You know, I kissed her once and she smiled
She’ll never see the boy falling out of the sky
It took me all I had to turn away from this one
Thought I’d take my chances, I was blinded, I was young
But then all at once, I was back to where I begun
I was burned by the morning, I got too close to the sun
She said, “Your feathers fit just right
You’re a fool, you’re a climber, you should’ve called it a night”
Well, it turns out (it turns out), I turned out fine (turned out fine)
So better luck next time, I’m Icarus ascending
You know, I kissed her once and she smiled
She’ll never see the boy falling out of the sky
It took me all I had to turn away from this one
Thought I’d take my chances, I was blinded, I was young
But then all at once, I was back to where I begun
I was burned by the morning, I got too close to the sun
She’ll never know I was falling, falling, oh
I got too close to the sun
It took me all I had to turn away from this one
Thought I’d take my chances, I was blinded, I was in love
But then all at once, I was back to where I begun
I was burned by the morning, I got too close to the sun
I got too close to the sun

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Edward James Milton Dwane / Benjamin Walter David Lovett / Marcus Oliver Johnstone Mumford / Aaron Brooking Dessner / Kevin Owen Garrett
Icarus lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Ltd., Universal Music Corp., Roc Nation Music, Ingrid Stella Music, Kevin Garrett Music