Physician Writers Group works with Harrell Library to record video project
Led by Dr. Kimberly Myers, Professor of Humanities, the Penn State Physician Writers Group is a collaborative workshop for creative medical writing in formats including personal reflection essay, 55-word stories, imagist and free-verse poems and haiku. The group’s members have produced illuminating works that have been published in various generalist and specialist medical journals like the Journal of the American Medical Association, New England Journal of Medicine and Journal of Palliative Medicine. Dr. Myers’ program complements Penn State College of Medicine’s national and international reputation for cultivating the humanistic dimension of health care.
The group meets an escalating need for self-care in a high-stress, technologically-oriented era of medicine marked by pervasive levels of physician burnout. To increase awareness of the group and its impact, Dr. Myers consulted with the Office of University Development. Jessica Kiely, Associate Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations, shared the benefits of the program with the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, who wanted to create a series of recordings that showcase the group’s work and the process behind its creation. The planning group approached Harrell Health Sciences Library’s Multimedia Services team for help with the project’s execution.
Library multimedia specialists Mike Cote and Eliza Donne met with Dr. Myers, Kiely and representatives from the Gold Foundation to discuss how the goals of the project could best be achieved. They decided that the library’s One-Button Studio would be used to record the sessions and that the resultant videos would be edited for final release. The One-Button Studio is a fully equipped and easy-to-use recording space that is available for free to all faculty, staff and students at the College of Medicine. It can be booked online through the library’s website, and setup assistance is available.
On the day of recording, several physician writers came to share their work, and other important contributors participated in discussions. The library’s multimedia team helped prepare the writers’ group for all the elements of a day-long recording session, and Mike Cote oversaw camera setup and filming.
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