Programs

RON: Mindful Practice workshops build skills that can be applied during every day work in whatever work setting you find yourself. Formal meditation is valuable for many of us, and we strongly encourage participants to develop some kind of regular contemplative practice, even if only for a few minutes per day. However, the mindfulness that really “counts” is what you can do while at work and at home, dealing with the complexities and stresses intrinsic to our lives. Mindful Practice programs focus on approaching the most challenging aspects of our work lives with awareness, attention, curiosity, beginner’s mind and presence. Imagine a mindful resuscitation attempt. A mindful path through a difficult conflict with a patient or colleague. A mindful response to an unanticipated surgical complication. A mindful approach to a student in difficulty. Even those with significant experience with contemplative practices need a new set of skills to be able to bring their capacity for focus and presence to the complex world of medicine.

MICK: The approaches taught in Mindful Practice in Medicine are definitely suitable and would be useful for participants with any level of meditation/mindfulness/contemplative experiences. Because we have combined some of the powerful aspects of narrative medicine and appreciative inquiry in this approach, and because there is so much about the approach that is relational and interactive, Mindful Practice in Medicine adds new dimensions to contemplative practices that at times can be individual and self-directed experiences. And the tools that we share in our workshops can be truly helpful in bridging the “on the cushion” meditative practice to “with the patient” medical practice, tools that can be practiced and used on a daily basis, requiring very little time, yet benefiting the little time we do have with our patients, colleagues and staff.

We offer workshops for as few as 10 and as many as 150 participants. For larger groups, we break out into smaller sub-groups for some of the exercises and discussion, each with a facilitator.

Mindful Practice workshops can be helpful for anyone in healthcare: clinicians, trainees, non-clinician staff, leadership. They can encompass academic medical centers, hospitals, clinics, and corporate settings. We alter the curricula to adapt to the needs of each group. Mixed groups are fine for many of the exercises; other have to be adapted because clinical contexts might be different. For example, errors, moral distress and conflicts may manifest differently for students, nurses, physicians and administrators. While entire work teams can participate, including leadership, we try to avoid pairing those in hierarchical and reporting relationships in exercises that might bring up personal information or bad outcomes.

A 2-day immersion provides a depth of experience that cannot be achieved by shorter workshops. Sometimes we can break up the content into two 1-day experiences. In addition, a series of videoconferences after the in-person programs can reinforce content and maintain a supportive professional community. Longer 3- or 4-day workshops are available, some of which are residential.