Columbia Narrative Medicine

01/20/2026

Early Bird registration is now open for "Attention to Self and Other: Narrative Medicine in Practice," our Spring 2026 virtual workshop from Columbia Narrative Medicine.�

📅 April 17–19, 2026�
💻 Virtual workshop�

In moments of complexity and uncertainty, attention matters. This intensive workshop offers a grounded introduction to narrative medicine theory and practice, centered on cultivating deep attention to oneself and others — and exploring how these applied narrative skills inform reflective practice across health care and beyond.�

Through philosophy, literature, film, theater and embodiment, and clinical reflection, participants will engage in rigorous skill-building in narrative competence and the core methods of narrative medicine. The program includes presentations by the founders and faculty of Columbia Narrative Medicine, along with interactive sessions, Q&A, and small-group work rooted in the field’s foundational principles.�

Register by March 24 for $50 off tuition.

DETAILS & REGISTRATION:
https://www.mhe.cuimc.columbia.edu/narrative-medicine/public-programming-and-events/narrative-medicine-workshops/attention-self-and-other-narrative-medicine-practice-april-17-19-2026

01/16/2026

JOIN US on February 4th at 6pm EST for rounds. We’re honored to begin the 2026 season by welcoming Jamaican-British poet, writer, and performance poet Raymond Antrobus.

Antrobus is the author of Shapes & Disfigurements, To Sweeten Bitter, The Perseverance, winner of the Ted Hughes Award, Rathbone Folio Prize, and Somerset Maugham Award; finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize and Reading the West Book Award; and shortlisted for the Forward Prize; and All The Names Given, which was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize 2021 and for which he was awarded the Rathbone Folio Prize for best work of literature in any genre. Most recently, he is the author of the collection Signs, Music and The Quiet Ear: An Investigation of Missing Sound: A Memoir(link is external and opens in a new window).

The Quiet Ear tells the story of Raymond’s upbringing at the intersection of race and disability. Growing up in East London to an English mother and Jamaican father, educated in both mainstream and deaf schooling systems, Raymond explores the shame of miscommunication, the joy of finding community and shines a light on the decline of deaf education in Britain.

Throughout, Raymond sets his story alongside those of other D/deaf cultural figures – from painters to silent film stars, poets to performers – the inspiring models of D/deaf creativity he did not have growing up.

The Quiet Ear is a groundbreaking and much-needed examination of deafness. A memoir, a cultural history, a call to action.

Antrobus is also the author of two children’s picture books Terrible Horses, illustrated by Ken Wilson-Max; and Can Bears Ski?, illustrated by Polly Dunbar. This debut was selected as an Ezra Jack Keats honouree winner in 2021, and in 2022 for a Read For Empathy Collection Award.

In March of 2021, Antrobus hosted his first BBC Radio 4 Documentary – “Inventions In Sounds” – produced by Falling Tree Productions, which won a Best Documentary Award at the Third Coast International Audio Festival that year. His most recent work is a BBC World service documentary, “Recaptive Number 11,407,” that traces the lost story of a deaf man freed from slavery. The documentary was a “Radio Times Pick of the Day” and had over 70,000 downloads and streams the week of broadcast.

Antrobus was a founding member of Chill Pill and Keats House Poets Forum. He is an Ambassador for The Poetry School, Arts Emergency and a board member for English PEN, an organization that promotes freedom of expression and literature across frontiers. He is also an advocate for several D/deaf charities including Deaf Kidz International and National Deaf Children’s Society.

Antrobus has won numerous poetry slams including Farrago International Slam 2010, The Canterbury Slam 2013, and was a joint winner at the Open Calabash Slam in 2016. His poetry has appeared on BBC 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, Channel 4, The Big Issue, The Jamaica Gleaner, The Guardian, TedxEastEnd among others. A Sunday Times / University of Warrick Young Writer of the Year, he is the recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, Complete Works 3, Jerwood Compton and the Royal Society of Literature. He is also one of the world’s first recipients of an MA in Spoken Word education from Goldsmiths University. In 2021, he won the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award judged by Carolyn Forché; and in 2017, Ocean Vuong selected his poem “Sound Machine” for the Geoffrey Dearmer Award.

His poems have been published in Poetry, Poetry Review, Lit Hub, News Statesman, The Deaf Poets Society, among others. He has poems on the UK’s (GCSE) National Curriculum.

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Dr. Ana H. Kim is Professor and Chief of Otology/Neurotology & Skull Base Surgery in the Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). She is also the Director of the CUMC Cochlear Implant Program. Her educational leadership includes being the Vice Chair of Education and Neurotology Fellowship Director. She maintains an active medical and surgical practice and is also a clinician-scientist with a long track record of conducting both clinical and basic science research. Her research has focused on such areas as the central effect of noise-induced hearing loss, hearing loss and dementia/cognitive decline, genetic causes of hearing loss and cochlear implant outcomes. She is a member of numerous professional societies and also serves on the New York State Hearing Aid Advisory Board. She has authored numerous publications and has presented nationally and internationally.

MORE INFO & REGISTRATION:

We’re honored to begin the 2026 season by welcoming Jamaican-British poet, writer, and performance poet Raymond Antrobus.

01/12/2026

What happens when you spend an entire semester with a single work of art? Rika Burnham, lecturer in the Columbia University Narrative Medicine program, believes transformative moments emerge through sustained attention and shared conversation in museum galleries. Her students discover how "slow art encounters" sharpen observation skills crucial for healthcare professionals and patients alike.

Read the full article below!

Narrative Medicine lecturer Rika Burnham brings decades of museum education experience to the program and introduces students to the transformative power of art.

12/18/2025

"This year marks the 25th anniversary of Columbia’s Program in Narrative Medicine, founded by general internist Rita Charon, MD, PhD, who introduced the phrase “narrative medicine” into the lexicon of medical education..."

➡️ Read the full article: https://www.vagelos.columbia.edu/about-us/columbia-medicine-magazine/fall-2025/featured-stories/how-treat-patient-work-art

As Columbia celebrates 25 years of narrative medicine, students are using acrylic paint to depict pain, instructors are teaching with comics, and providers are listening to patients as though reading.

12/09/2025

*Rescheduled Event From September 2025* JOIN US TOMORROW on Wednesday December 10th at 6pm EST for our rounds. We have the distinct honor of welcoming Lidia Yuknavitch, the National Bestselling author of four novels: Thrust, The Book of Joan, Dora: A Headcase, and The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Awards Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the OBA Reader's Choice Award. Her newest memoir, Reading the Waves, was published by Riverhead books in 2025.

In Reading the Waves, Yuknavitch draws from her complex past — her father's abuse, her relationship with her disabled mother, the loss of her child, and her sexual relationships with men and women — to harness the power of literature and storytelling to reframe her memories. As an author and teacher, she uses this creative insight to transform her wounds into a source of emotional growth and restoration.
By turns candid and lyrical, stoic and forgiving, blunt and evocative, Reading the Waves reframes memory to show how crucial this process can be to gaining a deeper understanding of ourselves.

In addition, Yuknavitch has published a critical book on war and narrative, Allegories Of Violence (Routledge). The Misfit's Manifesto, a book based on her recent TED Talk published by TED Books in 2017. Verge, a collection of short fiction released in 2020. Her widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Award Reader's Choice.

She has also had writing appear in publications including Guernica Magazine, Ms., The Iowa Review, Zyzzyva, Another Chicago Magazine, The Sun, Exquisite Co**se, TANK, and in the anthologies Life As We Show It (City Lights), Wreckage of Reason (Spuytin Duyvil), Forms at War (FC2), Feminaissance (Les Figues Press), and Representing Bisexualities (SUNY), as well as online at The Rumpus.

Yuknavitch founded the workshop series Corporeal Writing in Portland Oregon, where she teaches both in person and online. She received her doctorate in Literature from the University of Oregon. She is a very good swimmer.

Chaya Bhuvaneswar is a practicing physician, writer and PEN /American Robert W. Bingham Debut Fiction award finalist for her story collection WHITE DANCING ELEPHANTS: STORIES, which was also selected as a Kirkus Reviews Best Debut Fiction and Best Short Story Collection and appeared on "best of" lists for Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Vogue India, and Entertainment Weekly. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, Narrative Magazine, Tin House, Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Masters Review, The Sun, The Millions, Joyland, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Awl, and anthologized elsewhere. She has received fellowships from MacDowell, Community of Writers, Kimmel Harding Nelson, Helene Wurllitzer and Sewanee Writers Conference.

MORE INFO & REGISTRATION:
https://www.mhe.cuimc.columbia.edu/narrative-medicine/public-programming-and-events/narrative-medicine-rounds/december-10th-narrative-medicine-rounds-lidia-yuknavitch

We have the distinct honor of welcoming Lidia Yuknavitch, National Bestselling author speak about her newest memoir, Reading the Waves.

12/05/2025

*Rescheduled Event From September 2025* JOIN US NEXT WEEK on Wednesday December 10th at 6pm EST for our rounds. We have the distinct honor of welcoming Lidia Yuknavitch, the National Bestselling author of four novels: Thrust, The Book of Joan, Dora: A Headcase, and The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Awards Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the OBA Reader's Choice Award. Her newest memoir, Reading the Waves, was published by Riverhead books in 2025.

In Reading the Waves, Yuknavitch draws from her complex past — her father's abuse, her relationship with her disabled mother, the loss of her child, and her sexual relationships with men and women — to harness the power of literature and storytelling to reframe her memories. As an author and teacher, she uses this creative insight to transform her wounds into a source of emotional growth and restoration.
By turns candid and lyrical, stoic and forgiving, blunt and evocative, Reading the Waves reframes memory to show how crucial this process can be to gaining a deeper understanding of ourselves.

In addition, Yuknavitch has published a critical book on war and narrative, Allegories Of Violence (Routledge). The Misfit's Manifesto, a book based on her recent TED Talk published by TED Books in 2017. Verge, a collection of short fiction released in 2020. Her widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Award Reader's Choice.

She has also had writing appear in publications including Guernica Magazine, Ms., The Iowa Review, Zyzzyva, Another Chicago Magazine, The Sun, Exquisite Co**se, TANK, and in the anthologies Life As We Show It (City Lights), Wreckage of Reason (Spuytin Duyvil), Forms at War (FC2), Feminaissance (Les Figues Press), and Representing Bisexualities (SUNY), as well as online at The Rumpus.

Yuknavitch founded the workshop series Corporeal Writing in Portland Oregon, where she teaches both in person and online. She received her doctorate in Literature from the University of Oregon. She is a very good swimmer.

Chaya Bhuvaneswar is a practicing physician, writer and PEN /American Robert W. Bingham Debut Fiction award finalist for her story collection WHITE DANCING ELEPHANTS: STORIES, which was also selected as a Kirkus Reviews Best Debut Fiction and Best Short Story Collection and appeared on "best of" lists for Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Vogue India, and Entertainment Weekly. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, Narrative Magazine, Tin House, Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Masters Review, The Sun, The Millions, Joyland, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Awl, and anthologized elsewhere. She has received fellowships from MacDowell, Community of Writers, Kimmel Harding Nelson, Helene Wurllitzer and Sewanee Writers Conference.

MORE INFO & REGISTRATION:
https://www.mhe.cuimc.columbia.edu/narrative-medicine/public-programming-and-events/narrative-medicine-rounds/december-10th-narrative-medicine-rounds-lidia-yuknavitch

We have the distinct honor of welcoming Lidia Yuknavitch, National Bestselling author speak about her newest memoir, Reading the Waves.

12/04/2025

“Narrative Medicine: Its History, its Applications, and its Use in Clinical Settings”

⭐️ Diane Rehm interviews Columbia Narrative Medicine faculty, Lynne Bamat Mijangos, RN, MSW, M.F.A., M.S.

➡️ https://dianerehm.substack.com/p/narrative-medicine-its-history-its

12/02/2025

JOIN US TOMORROW on Wednesday December 3rd at 6pm EST for our rounds.

For our December rounds, we have the pleasure of welcoming Antoinette Cooper, a visionary writer, TEDx speaker, Collective Trauma Facilitator, and founder of Black Exhale. Her work, featured in The Poetry Foundation, lntima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and others, explores intersections of race, gender, health, and ancestral healing. Cooper holds an MFA from Columbia University and serves on the advisory board for CUNY's Narrative Medicine program. Her debut book of poetry, UNRULY, was published in 2025.

In Unruly, Antoinette Cooper weaves poetry, memoir, and documentary evidence into an ineffable work of embodied storytelling. UNRULY honors the Black female body as a site of profound resilience and complex histories.

With uncompromising honesty and lyrical precision, Cooper explores the intimate experiences of Black women-from historical medical abuses to contemporary health disparities, intergenerational trauma, societal beauty standards, and personal encounters with violence and healing. UNRULY refuses silence by (re)claiming our often unspoken and inviolable voice.

This revelatory reading experience, at once deeply personal and universally resonant, offers a nuanced exploration of how past and present intertwine in Black women's bodies. Cooper's genre-defying approach invites us to witness ancestral legacies while envisioning paths to integration and liberation, announcing her as an essential voice in contemporary literature. UNRULY offers language to articulate the full spectrum of Black women's embodied realities-in all their pain, power, and possibility.

Zahra H. Khan (she/her) is an educator and editor whose research, writing, and community engagement focus on facilitating critical consciousness in medical education and developing frameworks for abolitionist and healing-centered possibilities in health care. She is on the editorial board of Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and a lecturer in the Graduate Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. Zahra teaches courses exploring how the arts, humanities, and storytelling can be leveraged to address key issues impacting the health and safety of our most vulnerable communities, and how narrative can be a tool to drive meaningful action. She is the co-author of “Abolition Medicine” in The Lancet and “Abolitionist Reimaginings of Health” in the AMA Journal of Ethics, among other pieces. Zahra is currently the Storytelling and Media Producer at Interrupting Criminalization, leading the Beyond Do No Harm national storytelling project, which amplifies the stories of health care providers interrupting criminalization in health care.

MORE INFO & REGISTRATION:

For our December rounds, we have the pleasure of welcoming Antoinette Cooper, a visionary writer, TEDx speaker, Collective Trauma Facilitator, and founder of Black Exhale.

11/25/2025

JOIN US NEXT WEEK on Wednesday December 3rd at 6pm EST for our rounds.

For our December rounds, we have the pleasure of welcoming Antoinette Cooper, a visionary writer, TEDx speaker, Collective Trauma Facilitator, and founder of Black Exhale. Her work, featured in The Poetry Foundation, lntima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and others, explores intersections of race, gender, health, and ancestral healing. Cooper holds an MFA from Columbia University and serves on the advisory board for CUNY's Narrative Medicine program. Her debut book of poetry, UNRULY, was published in 2025.

In Unruly, Antoinette Cooper weaves poetry, memoir, and documentary evidence into an ineffable work of embodied storytelling. UNRULY honors the Black female body as a site of profound resilience and complex histories.

With uncompromising honesty and lyrical precision, Cooper explores the intimate experiences of Black women-from historical medical abuses to contemporary health disparities, intergenerational trauma, societal beauty standards, and personal encounters with violence and healing. UNRULY refuses silence by (re)claiming our often unspoken and inviolable voice.

This revelatory reading experience, at once deeply personal and universally resonant, offers a nuanced exploration of how past and present intertwine in Black women's bodies. Cooper's genre-defying approach invites us to witness ancestral legacies while envisioning paths to integration and liberation, announcing her as an essential voice in contemporary literature. UNRULY offers language to articulate the full spectrum of Black women's embodied realities-in all their pain, power, and possibility.

Zahra H. Khan (she/her) is an educator and editor whose research, writing, and community engagement focus on facilitating critical consciousness in medical education and developing frameworks for abolitionist and healing-centered possibilities in health care. She is on the editorial board of Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and a lecturer in the Graduate Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. Zahra teaches courses exploring how the arts, humanities, and storytelling can be leveraged to address key issues impacting the health and safety of our most vulnerable communities, and how narrative can be a tool to drive meaningful action. She is the co-author of “Abolition Medicine” in The Lancet and “Abolitionist Reimaginings of Health” in the AMA Journal of Ethics, among other pieces. Zahra is currently the Storytelling and Media Producer at Interrupting Criminalization, leading the Beyond Do No Harm national storytelling project, which amplifies the stories of health care providers interrupting criminalization in health care.

MORE INFO & REGISTRATION:

For our December rounds, we have the pleasure of welcoming Antoinette Cooper, a visionary writer, TEDx speaker, Collective Trauma Facilitator, and founder of Black Exhale.

11/21/2025

JOIN US Wednesday December 3rd at 6pm EST for our rounds.

For our December rounds, we have the pleasure of welcoming Antoinette Cooper, a visionary writer, TEDx speaker, Collective Trauma Facilitator, and founder of Black Exhale. Her work, featured in The Poetry Foundation, lntima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and others, explores intersections of race, gender, health, and ancestral healing. Cooper holds an MFA from Columbia University and serves on the advisory board for CUNY's Narrative Medicine program. Her debut book of poetry, UNRULY, was published in 2025.

In Unruly, Antoinette Cooper weaves poetry, memoir, and documentary evidence into an ineffable work of embodied storytelling. UNRULY honors the Black female body as a site of profound resilience and complex histories.

With uncompromising honesty and lyrical precision, Cooper explores the intimate experiences of Black women-from historical medical abuses to contemporary health disparities, intergenerational trauma, societal beauty standards, and personal encounters with violence and healing. UNRULY refuses silence by (re)claiming our often unspoken and inviolable voice.

This revelatory reading experience, at once deeply personal and universally resonant, offers a nuanced exploration of how past and present intertwine in Black women's bodies. Cooper's genre-defying approach invites us to witness ancestral legacies while envisioning paths to integration and liberation, announcing her as an essential voice in contemporary literature. UNRULY offers language to articulate the full spectrum of Black women's embodied realities-in all their pain, power, and possibility.

Zahra H. Khan (she/her) is an educator and editor whose research, writing, and community engagement focus on facilitating critical consciousness in medical education and developing frameworks for abolitionist and healing-centered possibilities in health care. She is on the editorial board of Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and a lecturer in the Graduate Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. Zahra teaches courses exploring how the arts, humanities, and storytelling can be leveraged to address key issues impacting the health and safety of our most vulnerable communities, and how narrative can be a tool to drive meaningful action. She is the co-author of “Abolition Medicine” in The Lancet and “Abolitionist Reimaginings of Health” in the AMA Journal of Ethics, among other pieces. Zahra is currently the Storytelling and Media Producer at Interrupting Criminalization, leading the Beyond Do No Harm national storytelling project, which amplifies the stories of health care providers interrupting criminalization in health care.

MORE INFO & REGISTRATION:

For our December rounds, we have the pleasure of welcoming Antoinette Cooper, a visionary writer, TEDx speaker, Collective Trauma Facilitator, and founder of Black Exhale.