The Healing Muse

The Healing Muse is SUNY Upstate Medical University's journal of literary and visual arts published annually by the Center for Bioethics and Humanities. Since 2001, The Healing Muse has published stories, poetry, and essays that focus on illness and medicine in order to foster stronger communication and understanding for those involved in all aspects of health care. Volume 11 introduces new authors and artists and a few old friends. They offer us full portraits of people caught in their own pivotal moment; we ache with some and triumph with others. But always walk away enriched and even ennobled by our shared humanity.

The Healing Muse is SUNY Upstate Medical University's journal of literary and visual arts published annually by the Center for Bioethics and Humanities. Since 2001, The Healing Muse has published stories, poetry, and essays that focus on illness and medicine in order to foster stronger communication and understanding for those involved in all aspects of health care. Volume 11 introduces new authors and artists and a few old friends. They offer us full portraits of people caught in their own pivotal moment; we ache with some and triumph with others. But always walk away enriched and even ennobled by our shared humanity. The Healing Muse was begun to foster dialogue between those experiencing illness and those attempting to treat and care for them. Showcasing writers from the local community and around the country, the journal offers compelling and moving insights into the contemporary and controversial subjects surrounding today’s health care: families coping with difficult diagnoses; tense, unsettling moments in waiting rooms; the difficult nature of invasive procedures and their follow-up treatments; the complex and ethical dilemmas patients and physicians face when grappling with their health. In The Healing Muse, readers hear the voices of real people affected by real illness alongside the perspectives of doctors, nurses, other health care professionals, medical students, and caregivers.

Deirdre Neilen, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Bioethics and Humanities and Editor of The Healing Muse, Upstate's journal of literary and visual arts. She received her doctorate in literature from Syracuse University. Dr. Neilen teaches medical creative writing workshops and is a faculty tutor for medical students in Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Medicine. Her courses include Dying and Death in American Literature and AIDS in American Literature, both offered through the Consortium for Culture and Medicine. She has also taught Multicultural Issues in Society and Health Care Ethics for the College of Health Professions and the College of Nursing. Dr. Neilen chairs the Bruce Dearing Writing Awards Committee and the Center Seminar Series. She received the President's Award for Excellence in Affirmative Action (2000) for her service to the Minority Medical Students Academic Achievement Program, and received the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching (1991). Her research and publishing interests include cultural diversity in health care, patient narratives in contemporary literature, and creative writing. Her scholarly and creative writings have appeared in World Literature Today, Academic Medicine, North Dakota Quarterly, American Way, New Letters, and Northeast Magazine.