Events Calendar

Writing about Patients: Truth and Consequences A Lecture by Jay Baruch, MD

Admission is free.
A reception will be held at 3 p.m. in Hoyt Gallery.

The recent era has seen a rise in writing about illness, including physician and patient memoirs, blogs about illness and the practice of medicine and fiction based on the experiences of patients. Such writing can be illuminating and healing and can foster important conversations about health and the nature of suffering. But at a time when information can be shared with a keystroke, issues of privacy and confidentiality demand our careful consideration and thoughtful reflection. Jay Baruch, MD, will discuss the moral and ethical implications of this kind of writing.

Dr. Baruch is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University. His collection of short fiction, Fourteen Stories: Doctors, Patients, and Other Strangers received an honorable mention in the short-story category in ForeWord magazine’s 2007 Book of the Year Awards. His fiction has also appeared in numerous print and online literary journals. In addition to his emergency-medicine practice, he serves as director of the medical-ethics curriculum and of the medical-ethics scholarly concentration at Brown’s medical school.

Organized by Pamela Schaff (Pediatrics and Keck Educational Affairs), Erin Quinn (Family Medicine and Keck Admissions) and Lyn M. Boyd-Judson (Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics). Co-sponsored by the Keck School of Medicine’s Program in Medical Humanities, Arts and Ethics; the USC Pacific Center for Health Policy and Ethics; and the Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics.

For further information on this event:
visionsandvoices@usc.edu

Location: Health Sciences Campus, Mayer Auditorium

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Daria Yudacufski