What and When
Penn State Hershey Physician Writers Group is a workshop for clinicians who are interested in creative writing for publication in professional medical journals. Humanities professor Dr. Kimberly Myers, who holds a doctorate in literature, hosts the PWG.
The group meets six times—every other week for three months during the fall or spring semester. Participants collectively decide the day and time of meetings, which last two hours each.
Process
During each meeting, participants learn the conventions—and discuss a few examples—of a particular genre (e.g., personal reflection essay, imagist poem, haiku, free verse poem, flash fiction, “Medicine and the Arts” commentary). Participants then write an original work of that genre and send it to their colleagues, who read and reflect on it before the following meeting. The subsequent gathering is a workshop in which participants discuss each person’s piece in terms of content and form. Authors revise their work based on this collective critique and then submit it for publication.
Impact
Penn State Hershey Physician Writers Group original creative work has been featured in JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, Academic Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Medical Humanities, and other general and specialty medical publications. Their work has also been featured on television, radio and the Internet as part of the WITF public television / public radio series “Facing Cancer Together” and has been covered by the Harrisburg Patriot-News. The inaugural PWG gave a public reading of their work in December 2010 as part of the Department of Humanities “First Fridays” series.
How to Join
Please contact Dr. Kimberly Myers for information on the next Physician Writers Group cycle.
Telephone: 717-531-3175
Email: krm16@psu.edu
Patriot News Article: Prescription For Expression