Events Calendar

The Tapestry of Us: Honoring Our Shared Humanity

May 23–24, 2025 | 8:30am - 5:00 pm | JABSOM - Kaka'ako

We invite you to this immersive workshop that brings us together to experience and explore how the humanities—through storytelling, reflective writing, the arts, and connection with place—can foster a more compassionate, relational approach to health and healing in Hawaiʻi. We hope this gathering will serve as a meaningful standalone experience and also as a launchpad for ongoing collaboration.

What to expect

Participants will engage in:

• Time in the māla (garden) to ground us in a sense of place
• Large and small group dialogue
• Reflective writing and arts-based activities
• Curriculum brainstorming as a creative exercise for future collaboration

Thematic focus:

Rooted in the Pilinahā framework from Kōkua Kalihi Valley, which teaches us about four vital connections for holistic health (to community, 'āina, past & future, and our better selves), we will explore how narrative medicine and health humanities can be practiced through an Indigenous health lens, and how we can integrate these approaches into medical training in a Native Hawaiian place of learning. Narrative medicine, as defined by Columbia University, is an approach to clinical practice that uses stories and the arts to deepen human connection, promote justice in health care, and better understand patients, communities, and ourselves.

Workshop Objectives include:

• Exploring how Native Hawaiian cultural concepts of land and wellness influence patient care

• Using reflective writing and art-based modalities to deepen communication and emotional insight in education and patient care

• Co-creating culturally relevant learning activities and curricula that bridge the humanities and health

• Building a community of practice across disciplines for those interested in health humanities 

Please RSVP here by May 14 if you're able to join us (even if only for a portion of the workshop). Light breakfast and lunch will be provided. Feel free to contact me at schiff@hawaii.edu if you have any questions.

With warm aloha,
Teresa