Florida State University is set to host the Arts-Health-Humanities Symposium VI on Tuesday, Feb. 10, at the Claude Pepper Center. The event will bring together faculty and students from disciplines such as design, medicine, music education, music therapy, and musicology to discuss current research and future interdisciplinary collaborations in medical humanities.
The symposium is part of the Festival of the Creative Arts, an annual event organized by FSU’s Office of Research that highlights creative work across various university departments.
One of the main participants is Tana Jean Welch, associate professor of medical humanities at FSU and a poet who studies how poetry and other forms of creative writing can support those working in high-stress medical environments. Welch explained that poetry often mirrors human experience through its structure and language.
“Poetry’s use of blank space, collage, ambiguity, and fragmented language echoes our embodied experience in many ways,” Welch said. “The meaning of a poem, just like the meaning of a body, can shift from reader to reader or from day to day — in this way, poetry can be a truer representation of the body and bodily health. The way we feel in our bodies — emotionally, physically, psychologically — is constantly changing as our bodies encounter other bodies. Poetry provides space for variation.”
Welch teaches literature, writing, and humanities courses at FSU and leads the Chapman Humanities and Arts in Medicine Program (CHAMP), which aims to enrich the intellectual environment at FSU’s College of Medicine with arts programming. She also serves as managing editor for “HEAL: Humanism Evolving through Arts and Literature,” a journal where doctors, students, and patients share personal stories about their experiences in medicine.
According to Welch: “Creative and reflective writing is important for anyone in any field. It is a critical thinking tool — the act of writing can reveal hitherto unknown knowledge and emotions. Searching for the right words forces us to think deeper. This can be quite valuable in the medical profession.”
Welch emphasized that poetry can help express complex aspects of health that are hard to communicate otherwise: “Poetry’s purpose is to express the ineffable… There is much about our health that is difficult to communicate… Poetry can bring us that much closer to feeling what someone else is feeling… Poetry can help us articulate the complexity of life and help us change the language we use to construct conditions of health and illness.”
She also discussed her concept of “the human entanglement,” stating: “It is impossible to maintain opposition or separation between the human body and everything else… Recognition of our bodily entanglement reduces the emphasis placed on individual choice… while also encouraging us to acknowledge our kinship with all others. This recognition is vital for achieving true health equity.”
Welch referenced Dr. Rita Charon’s work on narrative medicine: “‘When health professionals write… about clinical experiences, they as a matter of course discover aspects… not evident to them.’ Writing about a clinical experience offers providers a place to reflect on what could’ve been done differently…” Welch added that HEAL publishes patient narratives alongside those from healthcare professionals “to expand perspectives” within FSU’s medical community.
FSU encourages media inquiries regarding Welch’s contributions or coverage on medical humanities.
