I am writing this message in late fall when the oak tree outside my window is a brilliant auburn and the plants below a mess of wilted green and dying leaves. The dogs snuffle through the underbrush looking for the critters that live there. Each time I look down from my home office window, I think, “I’ll have to clear out those plants.” Yet I procrastinate, enjoying the passive observation of bloom and decay.

When you read this message, it will be early January—cold, leafless, and often gray, as Pennsylvania winters are wont to be. I am looking forward to what the wild garden will look like then. This is my pandemic silver lining—attending to the garden daily, checking in on the soil and shrubs, making sure there is a place for toads and chipmunks to hide, watching plants grow, blossom, wither, and die.

We have worked in the midst of terrible losses and yet we have persevered. Being a member of this wonderful community—committed, charitable, healing—is another silver lining. In Humanities, we’ve been busy designing new courses, applying for and receiving grant funding, gathering data, and writing up results. We’ve explored new ideas, tested out old ones, and challenged our perspectives. Above all, we’ve been paying attention—for many of us, the world as it is lived is the setting for our investigations.

Read on to see what we’ve been up to.

The Department of Humanities invites you to submit your creative writing, photography and artwork for the 2022 edition of Wild Onions by Jan. 15.

Although we have selected the theme, Touch,” Wild Onions encourages and accepts submissions on all topics.
To submit your work visit: sites.psu.edu/wildonions/submitting or email: wildonions@pennstatehealth.psu.edu.

Drawing on Art to Hone Observational and Analytical Skills

Inspired by their participation in a Harvard Macy Institute Fellowship, three Humanities faculty are using the visual arts to refine medical students’ observational skills and spark new understandings of data.

The Art Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship introduces pedagogical methods and practices that “help illuminate different perspectives, promote greater insight, and facilitate communication,” said Michael Flanagan, MD, assistant dean for student affairs (University Park curriculum) and professor, Family and Community Medicine, who participated in the 2020 Fellowship cohort.

This fall, the UP curriculum included several sessions at the Penn State Palmer Museum of Art developed to emphasize first-year students’ observational and communication skills. Those sessions were designed by Flanagan and UP colleague Mark Stephens, MD, interim associate dean for medical education at UP, and professor, family and community medicine. “Arts-based activities provide an opportunity to practice skills and strategies that are relevant to medicine—awareness of biases, value of multiple perspectives, empathy,” said Stephens, a 2019 Fellow.

Kimberly Myers, PhD, professor of Humanities and Medicine at Penn State College of Medicine, a fall 2021 Fellow, is drawing on the program for “Observation & Interpretation,” a new Humanities course for first-year medical students at Hershey that is co-directed with
Justen Aprile, MD.

“By exploring how people experience a piece of art, we learn that our perspectives can be limited,” Myers said. “Listening to others’ observations can help us comprehend more completely and therefore interpret more accurately. Ideally, experiencing the arts also leads to empathy for others, another fundamental goal of practicing medicine.”

“There is always a next question.”

For Dan Wolpaw, questions often matter more than answers.

“In the short term, students may view their careers in terms of answers, but in the long term, their personal and professional lives will be about asking and navigating questions,” said Wolpaw, professor of Medicine and Humanities who retired from Penn State in December 2021.

“Patients are our classrooms. Real learning depends on the questions we ask ourselves, the uncertainties that we explore, and on what the Japanese call ‘shoshin’, or beginner’s mind.” Wolpaw’s commitment to inquiry, exploration, and discovery has been a hallmark of his 40+ years in medical education, first at Case Western Reserve University, where he received his medical degree and then taught for three decades, and, more recently, at Penn State College of Medicine.

This commitment has guided him through numerous educational leadership positions and has been an important focus of his scholarly work. It has also been foundational to the courses he developed, codeveloped, or directed on subjects ranging from critical thinking to immunology to health systems science.

His accomplishments and innovation in medical education have earned him several national awards including recognition for his career achievements in Medical Education from the Society for General Internal Medicine and, most recently, the prestigious Alpha Omega Alpha Robert J. Glaser Distinguished Teacher Award from the American Association of Medical Colleges in 2020.

To read more visit: /sites.psu.edu/humanities/d-wolpaw

Toxic Nursing, Second Edition: Managing Bullying, Bad Attitudes, and Total Turmoil

The first edition of this book (co-authored with Rebecca Volpe, PhD, in 2013) was awarded the prestigious American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year award.  The book reached a wide audience of nurses, especially managers and administrators who address issues of relational aggression every day. Consequently the publishers requested an updated edition. Toxic Nursing, 2nd edition, contains new content on Title IX, discriminatory practices, and the pervasive use of social media in the nursing workplace.

In the book, nurse experts from around the world contribute their expertise in addressing common relational problems in the workplace. Current references, follow-up activities, and discussion questions are included for each chapter and the Appendices offer other resources, such as screening tools.
Learn more at: cheryldellasega.com