Yamini Adusumelli, Anvitha Sathya, and Prasida Unni are fourth-year medical students at BU School of Medicine who share a passion for Indian classical dance. Through their medical education, they discovered the power of sharing patient stories to increase awareness and empathy for the patient experience. Dr. Nidhi Lal, Clinical Associate Professor in Family Medicine, who has been the advisor and mentor on this project, works on projects exploring aspects of Narrative Medicine.

Jennifer Anderson worked for twenty-three years as an inpatient psychiatric nurse for children and adolescents. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Antioch University and begins her study of narrative medicine through Columbia University's C.P.A. program this fall. Her essays have appeared or are forthcoming in The Missouri Review and Iron Horse Literary Review. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and their three teens.

I. Cori Baill, MD is a board-certified OB/GYN and a Professor of Medicine at The University of Central Florida College of Medicine (UCF COM). She is the author of a children's picture book—"Why is Mommy Crying?”—explaining early pregnancy loss to young children." Baill is enrolled in Columbia University's Certificate of Professional Study in Narrative Medicine and it is her goal to further incorporate narrative medicine into faculty and student activities at UCF COM. Her interests include menopausal medicine, nontraditional student education, and limiting government interference in reproductive healthcare.

Liz Baxmeyer is a writer, visual artist, sound artist, and composer living in Sacramento, CA, were she teaches arts and Humanities (including Narrative Medicine) to health sciences students. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, and an MA in music from Bangor University, UK; she is currently completing a PhD in Creative Research at Transart Institute. In her work, Liz often explores folklore, feminism, grief, and ecology, especially where these themes intersect. Her art, fiction, poetry, and nonfiction are published in Wild Roof Journal, The Examined Life Journal, Luna Station Quarterly, and more. Her hybrid chapbook, Root & Bone, shall be published by Finishing Line Press in November, 2024. Liz is EIC of The Calendula Review: A Journal of Narrative Medicine

Peter Bingham serves as division head of Child Neurology at Vermont Children's Hospital in Burlington Vermont. He graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons where he learned of medical narrative as a potential path for his aspirations as a writer. His research activities have included various topics in neuro-rehabilitation. He is also a musician (classical guitar, singer-songwriter, Oud), father of 3, and an advocate for the containment of noise pollution for the benefit of children's neurodevelopmental and mental health.

Ryan Boyland is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer, wanderer, doctor and amateur astronomer based out of Denver, Colorado. Boyland and his work have been featured on Button Poetry, Poets and Writers, Nebraska Public Media, with the Nebraska Poetry Society, and Larksong Writers’ Place, as well as in Rattle, Omaha Magazine, and The Cookout Literary Journal. Recordings and performances can be found on YouTube and TikTok. Read more about his work at ryanboyland.com

Tiffany Chen is a 4th-year medical student at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She is pursuing family medicine residency, hoping to work with underserved patient populations and take care of patients from newborns to end-of-life. She has a special interest in pediatrics, obstetrics and end-of-life care. Outside of medicine, Chen does craft projects with friends (crocheting, knitting, watercolor), works as a florist at a flower truck and plays tennis or pickleball.

The Danaid Collaboration (DanaidX) is a Baltimore based duo formed by Hope Brooks and Angela Yarian. Yarian spent 10 years unable to make work because of a debilitating illness, despite holding a degree in art. Likewise, Brooks, a trans woman, photographer and data engineer, also wrestles with her own chronic pain issues. Emerging from a quest to make art from a place that acknowledges present realities, their collaboration resists trying to be more abled-bodies than they are. Through an attentive, slow-moving method of making cyanotypes, they embrace limitations as a fertile ground for creative work, and as a possibility for expanding the dialogue on what constitutes a successful art practice and life.

Abigail DeNike is a medical student at UMass Chan Medical School living in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Alexis Drutchas, MD, is a palliative care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She trained in Family Medicine at Brown University and worked as a Primary Care Physician at Fenway Health, a nationally recognized LGBQT+ health center. Drutchas, who was a 2021 OpEd Public Voices Fellow, went on to complete the Harvard Palliative Care Fellowship and remained a core faculty member at MGH thereafter. Her work has been featured in The New England Journal of Medicine, NBC, CNN and Health Affairs, among others. Drutchas, who lives in Boston with her wife and son, co-founded The Palliative Story Exchange in 2020, building community and fostering shared meaning for clinicians through storytelling and reflection.

Maesha Elm Elahi is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

Steffi Gauguet, who is a Harvard-trained pediatric intensive care physician, works at UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center. When not taking care of critically ill children, she writes, runs, bikes, swims, skis and tries to raise her three rambunctious kids into kind and responsible people.

Sophia Gauthier, MD is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Duke University School of Medicine. She is a pediatric hospitalist in her real life and a storyteller in her imaginary one, with special interests in narrative medicine and global health. Her short story "Myrtle Beach" was published in Pulse.

Aishwarya Ghonge is an aspiring internist engaged in translational cancer research at Stanford School of Medicine. She recognizes Narrative Medicine as a powerful lens for transforming perceptions of patients to being seen as more than the sum of their diagnoses and hopes to harness their stories to drive a holistic approach to healing.

Alexandra Godfrey is a graduate from Wayne State University where she received a Master’s degree in Physician Assistant Studies. She completed an emergency medicine fellowship and now works in two community emergency departments in western North Carolina. Previously, Godfrey worked as a PT in Britain, where she was born and raised. She has worked as an author and columnist for the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants and the New England Journal of Medicine. Her writing has appeared in journals, including Confluence, Cell2Soul, The Healing Muse, Pulse, and The Examined Life. She was awarded the American College of Emergency Physicians’ writing award in 2017 and 2018.

Jackie Greenwood practiced small animal medicine and surgery for 38 years. During this time, she also made multiple trips to underserviced communities in Uganda, Peru and Northern Canada to deliver veterinary care. Since retiring, she has enjoyed writing about her experiences as ‘the other family doctor.’

Emily Groot is a public health physician, born and raised in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario on the territory of Garden River and Batchewana First Nations. She now lives with her family in Sudbury, Ontario.

Terry E. Hill is an aging geriatrician in Oakland, CA, with a long history of publishing in healthcare and more recent history in literature, e.g., in Vita Poetica, The Healing Muse, and the All Shall Be Well Anthology. He grew up in rural Georgia but left to get a B.A. in literature from Reed College. He spends time writing reports about for-profit long-term care corporations for the California Attorney General’s office.

Anna Hostal is a first-year medical student at Creighton University School of Medicine in Phoenix, Arizona. Her interests in art and medicine are inextricably intertwined, as it was her fascination with the beautiful forms and patterns of nature that inspired her to pursue science. She particularly enjoys exploring the similarities and differences between human anatomy/pathology and forms in the natural world. She is an aspiring surgeon. IG: @artofannaelizabeth

Heather Isaacs has worked as a chaplain for nearly 20 years, primarily in hospice settings. She is a per-diem Chaplain at UCSF Health and Chaplain/Consultant at Mettle Health, which provides telehealth palliative care. Isaacs’ practice of spiritual care is about holding space for people at critical turning points in their lives and supporting them in alignment with their deepest values and beliefs, spiritual and/or religious traditions or personally-defined worldviews. In addition to writing at heatherisaacs.com, she is part of an improv comedy group and also imagines ways of narrating stories through puppetry and song. She makes her home in the San Joaquin Valley with her partner and his children not far from where she grew up.

Rowan Jeffrey, PhD is an educator of thirty plus years. She enjoys working with adults who need additional support to achieve their educational goals, and currently manages a Learning Services team of 13 advisors at Ara Institute of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. An advanced psychodrama trainee, she has had poetry published in the Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand Psychodrama Association Journal (AANZPA Journal). Her experiences as the daughter of a man who hated every minute of his years in long-term care sparked her into a post-graduate Diploma in Health Sciences and creative writing as a means to process strong emotions, particularly poetry and short fiction that explores the psychodrama of life.

Victoria Johnson is an internal medicine hospitalist physician at the University of Illinois in Chicago. She teaches health humanities.

Maya Klauber is a poet and visual artist from New York City. She earned a Master of Social Work (MSW) from Columbia University in 2012, while coping with chronic health issues—experiences that have undoubtedly deepened her style of writing. Klauber, who resides in Manhattan with her beloved husband John and their dog, Lily, believes strongly in the innate value and healing power of story-telling and considers this a vital avenue of self-expression and connection for anyone touched by illness. Her poems have appeared in The Sunlight Press, Green Ink Poetry, Last Leaves, tiny wren lit, and the Fall 2023 Intima.

Ronald Lands a retired hematologist. He is an MFA alumnus of Queens University of Charlotte. He practiced medicine for many years in East Tennessee where he grew up. He was privileged to treat strangers, lifelong friends and a few relatives. All of his writing originates from these experiences.

Kerry Malawista, PhD, is a writer, training psychoanalyst, co-chair of New Directions in Writing and founder of The Things They Carry, offering virtual writing workshops for groups in need of healing. She is associate editor of the new creative nonfiction section of The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic. Her writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Boston Globe, and literary magazines. She is coauthor of When the Garden Isn’t Eden, Wearing my Tutu to Analysis and Other Stories, and co-editor of The Therapist in Mourning, Who’s Behind the Couch and editor of The Things They Wrote: A Writing Healing Project. Her recent novel Meet the Moon, is a Kraken Prize finalist.

Sujal Manohar lives and thrives at the intersection of the arts and sciences. A Duke University graduate with degrees in neuroscience and visual arts, she does not view these fields as mutually exclusive. Manohar has designed collaborative murals in health care settings, taught photography to pediatric patients, and led art gallery tours for adults with dementia. After graduation, she served as a Hart Fellow and AmeriCorps Artist in Residence at Imagine Art, an art studio for people with disabilities. Her artwork has been displayed at the Texas State Fair, Duke Wellness Center, and Kenan Keohane Gallery. She is a fourth-year medical student at Baylor College of Medicine. sujalmanohar.com

Ann Matzke is a writer whose work has appeared in HEAL: Humanism Evolving through Arts and Literature, Plain Song Review, and The Back End of Tuesday as well as the professional journals Horn Book online and School Library Media. Matzke has worked as a certified child life specialist at Charing Cross Hospital in London and Children's Hospitals in the U.S. and as a children's librarian. She holds a MS degree concentrating on stressful life events for children and families. Matzke, who has published 14 nonfiction books for young readers, earned an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University. Read more about her at annmatzke.com

Ankit Mehta is a hospitalist with HealthPartners and an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota (UMN) Medical School. Mehta has a keen interest in the intersection of arts, humanities, and medicine. He is an illustrator and passionate about use of graphic medicine in medical education. His graphic works have been published in various journals, books/cover designs and magazines. His graphic story “Advocating for Diastole” was shortlisted for the 2024 International Graphic Medicine Award and was part of an Emmy® winning documentary “Speaking About Race.”

Andrea L. Merrill, MD is a breast surgeon practicing in Charlottesville, VA. She is passionate about promoting women in surgery, surgical ergonomics, and narrative writing. She has published in JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine and Annals of Surgery.

Maja Milkowska-Shibata was born and raised in Poland and now lives in Naperville, Illinois. A public health professional and medical interpreter by training, Milkowska-Shibata uses writing and art to share stories and perspectives.  Learn more at majamilkowska-shibata.com

Rachel Mindrup is an associate professor of drawing and painting and the Richard L. Deming, MD Endowed Chair in Medical Humanities at Creighton University. She received her BFA from the University of Nebraska - Kearney and then continued with atelier studies at the Art Academy of Los Angeles. She received her MFA from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. Her current painting practice is about the study of the figure and portraiture in art and its relation to medicine, healing and identity. Her son's diagnosis and life living with NF has been the motivation behind her series of portraits, paintings, prints and drawings.

Kathryn Mousaw is a registered nurse, mother and writer. Working with patients in their homes changed her understanding of medicine, family and herself.

Andrew Murdock and Tessa Palisoc are MD candidates at Drexel University College of Medicine (DUCOM), where they participate in the Medical Humanities Scholar Track. They are members of the DUCOM dance club Impulse where they serve as board members. Murdock is a Bates College graduate with a Biochemistry major and Dance minor. Collegiately he trained in contact improvisation, modern, and postmodern dance styles. Palisoc studied contact improvisation, Mande dance, and aerial arts and acrobatics for 4 years at Brown University, where she earned an Sc.B. in immunobiology.

Zoran Naumovski is a hospitalist physician in Southern Ohio who has lived, worked and cared for his local community members for over twenty years. Naumovski graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English (Creative Writing) from Ohio State University in 1992 but only recently started writing, realizing the therapeutic effects of the written word. He is currently enrolled in MFA program at Lenoir-Rhyne University/Narrative Medicine track.

Rory O'Sullivan is a family doctor in Toronto, Canada, and an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Toronto. His written work has previously been published in The Intima, Pulse, Canadian Family Physician, and The COVID Journals anthology from University of Alberta Press. He is a past recipient of the CFPC Mimi Divinsky Award for History and Narrative in Family Medicine. He has worked in a range of clinical settings across four Canadian provinces, and is privileged to have collected amazing stories along the way. https://roryosullivan.ca, @TheCountryMD

Elizabeth Osmond is a poet and neonatologist based in the UK. Her work has featured in Intima, Ink Sweat and Tears, Atrium and the Alchemy Spoon amongst others. She won prizes in the Hippocrates competition for Poetry and Medicine in both 2021 and 2024.

Tessa Palisoc and Andrew Murdock are MD candidates at Drexel University College of Medicine (DUCOM), where they participate in the Medical Humanities Scholar Track. They are members of the DUCOM dance club Impulse where they serve as board members. Murdock is a Bates College graduate with a Biochemistry major and Dance minor. Collegiately he trained in contact improvisation, modern, and postmodern dance styles. Palisoc studied contact improvisation, Mande dance, and aerial arts and acrobatics for 4 years at Brown University, where she earned an Sc.B. in immunobiology.

Sumit Parikh is an emerging poet from Cleveland, OH. His work melds his Indian heritage with his experiences as a physician. He has been featured by the I-70 Review, Flipped Mitten, Akewi, Orange Peel, Hot Pot and Intima amongst others; his work can also be seen at sumitspoetry.com. He is in a writing mentorship and workshop with Brian Evans-Jones, who is a Poet Laureate of Hampshire, UK, and winner of the Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award from Poets & Writers. Parikh is a pediatric neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic and graduated with honors in English from Case Western Reserve University.

Kavita Parmar is a family physician, healer, and writer living in California. She enjoys meditation, mindful movement, singing, poetry, nature and practicing full moon loving presence with all of life when she is connected to her own heart.

Evelyn Potochny is an associate professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA.

Kaitlyn Reasoner is an Infectious Diseases fellow at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN. She plans to pursue a career in academic Infectious Diseases. When not at work, she enjoys hiking, reading and spending time with her one-eyed cat, Thistle.

Lauren Reyes is a Human Biology student at Stanford University who plans to pursue a medical career in cardiology, surgery or pediatrics. She is passionate about culturally-driven medical care for her Latine and Native American communities. Additionally, she enjoys writing poetry, creative essays and short stories relating to wellness and culture.

Joan Roger is a poet and physician who resides in the Pacific Northwest where she writes and practices medicine. In 2023, Roger earned her MFA in poetry from Pacific University. Through writing, she has begun to find a voice for her experience of working at Ground Zero on September 11th, 2001, when she was a third-year emergency medicine doctor-in-training at Bellevue Hospital. Roger has published poems in The Healing Muse, The Human Touch, Thimble Magazine, Intima, Canary Magazine, and The 2023 One Page Poetry Anthology. She is working on a collection of poems about being a medical worker during the 9/11 tragedy.

Amanda Ruth practices pediatric intensivist in Texas Children's Hospital and co-directs the medical humanities program. While originally from Indonesia, she is still trying to acclimatize to the Houston heat. In her spare time, she reads as much sci-fi/fantasy as she can, and is determined to work through as much of the food scene as possible with her husband and two sons.

Elizabeth Ryder serves as a chaplain in the outpatient oncology setting in Boise, Idaho. She enjoys all things outdoors, along with writing, gardening and exploring through travel and adventure. Connect on IG: @lizryder217

Hanna Saltzman is a writer, pediatrician and mother in Salt Lake City, where she is pursuing a pediatric rheumatology fellowship. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in River Teeth, Terrain.org, the Examined Life Journal, and numerous medical journals, including selection for the 2024 Notable Essay list by Best American Essays. Her essay “Split” appeared in the Spring 2021 Intima. Read more at hannasaltzman.com.

Ramya Sampath is a resident physician in Internal Medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital. Her written work focuses on the transformative power of grief for family members and physicians and has been featured in narrative medicine forums, such as JAMA's A Piece of My Mind, Intima, The Perch, and Months to Years as well as in a variety of medical journals.

Vilmarie Sanchez-Rothkegel, PhD resides in southern New Hampshire. For the last several years she has delved into creative writing with an interest in personal narratives. Of particular interest to her is the meaning-making process of the language of multiple sclerosis. She enjoys photography, reading, and the cherished moments with family, friends, and her dog Kevin.

Mesa Schumacher is an award-winning scientific and medical illustrator with an MFA from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her illustration and infographic work has appeared in National Geographic, Scientific American, zoos, aquariums, museums, science games and academic publications. She is working on a graphic novel about life with a mutant BRCA1 "breast cancer" gene. www.mesaschumacher.com

Carol Scott-Conner is Professor and Chair Emeritus in the Department of Surgery at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. She has written numerous textbooks, three monographs on writing, and two volumes of short stories. Her nonfiction, fiction, and poetry explore the interactions between physicians and patients. She was a founding member of the editorial board of "The Examined Life: A Literary Publication of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine." A perennial student, she recently earned her MFA in poetry and narrative medicine.

Gaetan Sgro is an internal medicine doctor, girl dad, and associate professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine where he directs a program in the medical humanities. His writing has appeared in Rattle, The Bellevue Literary Review, Hippocampus, Gravel, Hektoen International, The Healing Muse, Annals of Internal Medicine, JAMA, Best New Poets, and elsewhere.  Read more of his work at GaetanSgro.com

Paul Shovlin is a former Peace Corps Volunteer who lives and teaches in southeastern Ohio. His work can be found in drunkmonkeys.us, Gramarye: The Journal of the Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction, and an anthology by Middle West Press of poetry on giant robots.

Dianne Silvestri, poet and physician, is author of But I Still Have My Fingerprints (CavanKerry Press, 2022), which recounts her journey to recovery from leukemia and stem cell transplantation. Her poems have appeared in her chapbook Necessary Sentiments, JAMA, JAMA Oncology, American Journal of Nursing, Journal of Radiology Nursing, The Healing Muse, The Examined Life Journal of the Carver College of Medicine, Pulse, Barrow Street, Main Street Rag, Naugatuck River Review, Evening Street Review and elsewhere. Several of her recent works reflect on people close to her receiving critical diagnoses. Since retirement from medicine, she advocates for medical humanities through speaking and teaching.

Meha Semwal Smith resides in her home state of Colorado with her husband. She is in her last year of training as a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow. Her poetry has appeared in The Human Touch, Damfino Press, Black Renaissance Noire, and the juvenilia; she has also performed her poetry as spoken word at TalkRx. Smith is affiliated with the Lighthouse Writer's Workshop in Denver where she receives mentorship for her writing and is working on a novel.

Tajwar Taher completed his Family Medicine residency at Rutgers-RWJ University Hospital Somerset. He works at the Willamette Valley Women and Children's Health Center in McMinnville, Oregon practicing full spectrum Family Medicine. His interests in literature and narrative medicine include the intersections of culture, spirituality and history in shaping identities. Taher's reflections have been published in Pulse, Please See Me and Doximity.

Angela Tang-Tan is a third-year medical student at Keck School of Medicine of USC. She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 2020 with a dual degree in Neurobiology and Psychology before becoming an ambulance EMT during the COVID-19 pandemic. She plans to pursue a residency in neurosurgery. Two of Tang-Tan’s poems, “Code OB" and "Pediatric Hemicraniectomy," appeared in the Spring 2024 Intima.

Suzanne Travis is an RN living in Los Angeles with her husband and four rescue dogs. She is a mother of two adult children and a former stand-up comic, organizing fundraisers for various cancer organizations. Travis, who is semi-retired and runs an infusion center part time, worked over twenty years in oncology at UCLA and loved using humor with her patients and their families. Travis enjoys having more time to pursue her passion for writing, both memoir and humorous essays. Her non-fiction essay, Room 4512, was published in the Spring 2024 Intima.

Claire Weiner was born in Chicago and raised in the Chicago suburbs. Except for a decade in Los Angeles, she has spent most of her adult life in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She spent her decades-long, non-writing career working as a psychotherapist, helping people make more sense of their life stories. She began writing in earnest when her children were grown. Her work has been published in After Hours Press, Burningwood Literary Review, Uppagus, Muddy River Poetry Review, Peninsula Poets, and others. Her chapbook, For a Chance to Walk on Streets of Gold, was published by Finishing Line Press in Spring 2024. She and her husband now split their time between Michigan and Arizona, grateful to be surrounded by natural beauty in both places.

Joanne Wilkinson is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine at Brown University, a voracious reader and a single parent who writes whenever she gets the chance.

Victoria Yuan (she/her) is a third-year medical student and Sarnoff Fellow at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine. She graduated from Stanford University, where she majored in Biomedical Computation, minored in Classics, and produced podcasts with the Stanford Storytelling Project. With interests in data science and art, Victoria is drawn to the numbers and narratives of medicine, lending context and color to statistics through patient stories.