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Aims & Scope

Survive Thrive: Journal for Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine aims to provide opportunities for sharing research, artistic work, pedagogical dialogue, and the practice of Medical Humanities and Narrative as Medicine. Although it is linked to the Survive and Thrive Conference and Arts Festival, the Journal serves its own mission in education and the practice of Humanities as they relate to illness, injury, and trauma. One of the primary aims of the journal is to bring Medical Humanities and Narrative Medicine to patients, survivors, and caregivers. Its emphasis, therefore, is on patients and survivors and their needs, and while aware and supporting profession medical education, the journal is most concerned with an audience broader than an academic audience. We encourage physicians and others in the Medical Profession to practice Narrative as Medicine by submitting their work, especially when it encourages them to be artists – visual, performance, and literary. The scope of the journal is eclectic in that it considers all the disciplines of Medicine and the Humanities while focusing on their relationship and the needs of survivors and patients. Examples of areas of interest include but are by not means limited to:

  • PTS(D) – All survivors of trauma experience post traumatic stress. For some that trauma becomes a disability but all must manage the stress for survival and perhaps learn to thrive with it. Living post trauma is living in recovery and requires understanding and resources in order for the survivors to survive and thrive. We want to explore the challenges together and provide some of the understanding and resources necessary for surviving and thriving.
  • Brain, Heart, and Mind – Exploring the complex and lively relationship of brain, heart, and mind is an essential element in surviving and thriving. Among the many interesting possibilities is an exploration of possible benefits in the brain’s recovery after trauma – benefits that would not have been possible without the trauma. Understanding the brain’s power to rewire and the importance of stimulating the brain after injury offers a chance to move from the study of pathology to finding ways for a survivor with brain injury to thrive.
  • Testimony, Witness, and Advocacy – Testimony, Witness, and Advocacy are the foundations of Narrative Medicine. Survivors can and do learn to practice the skills and arts of these three columns of Narrative Medicine, and artists in the visual, performing, and literary arts will benefit by helping those survivors who are silent to tell their stories.
  • Careers in Medical Humanities – Being a practitioner of medicine AND the arts opens pathways for re-imagining career and vocation in Education, Medicine, and Industry. Offering those who practice Medical Humanities options for using their talents and skills is an essential mission of Survive and Thrive.
  • Bioethics and Medical Humanities – Issues of ethics in relation to medicine are central to our thinking and knowing together. Philosophy, spiritual considerations, and the implications of technology, for example, offer topics of particular interest.
  • Research in Medical Humanities and Narrative Medicine – Original research and proposals for research related to our aims are encouraged and will be reviewed carefully.