Commonweal The first program area is the support of a socially just and ecologically
sustainable future. Programs in this area include the Commonweal Sustainable
Futures Project founded in 1990 which supports the emergence of a global
network of NGO's working for a sustainable future and the Health Care
Without Harm Project which with Commonweal's support has organized a
worldwide response to the threat of dioxin pollution and endocrine disruptor
toxicity. The second of Commonweal's initiatives is the support of at-risk children
and young people and the professionals that serve them. Programs in this
area include: Commonweal's third initiative offers programs in healthcare innovation
and reform. These programs include: Institute for the Study
of Health and Illness The Healer's Art Finding Meaning
in Medicine
Commonweal, founded in 1976, is a non-profit health and environmental
research institute located on a 60-acre piece of the California coast one
hour north of San Francisco. Commonweal has three major initiatives.
The Commonweal Children's Program which designs and implements innovative
services to children and youth who are experiencing learning or social difficulties
in their families, schools and communities;
The Commonweal Children's Program Training Institute which trains
professionals in these new techniques and approaches;
The Commonweal Juvenile Justice Program, a program of governmental
reform founded in 1980 in response to dismal conditions of young people
in the juvenile justice system.
The Commonweal Cancer Help Retreat, co-founded by Rachel Naomi Remen,
M.D. and featured in the 1993 groundbreaking Bill Moyers PBS series Healing
and the Mind . Since it's beginnings in 1985, this program has offered more
than 100 week-long residential retreats for people with cancer, their friends
and families;
The Institute for the Study of Health and Illness, Commonweal's medical
reform through education project founded by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. in
1991 The Institute's educational programs serve practicing physicians, medical
students and medical educators.
Since 1991, Institute For The Study Of Health And Illness (ISHI)
has been offering programs for physicians who wish to strengthen the sense
of compassionate service that originally called them to medicine and explore
in depth the meaning of their work. The Institute also runs The
Healer's Art, a winter quarter course for first-year medical students
at UCSF which has been replicated at medical schools throughout the country
and The Way ISHI Works,
a four day intensive training program for medical educators who wish to
integrate the highly effective, transformative and experiential techniques
of ISHI's CME and medical school curricula into their own work. The Institute's
newest program, Finding
MEANING IN MEDICINE has established a widely disseminated network of
self-directed story-telling groups for physicians wishing to explore the
core experiences and values of the practice of medicine and deepen their
commitment to service.
The Healer's Art is a highly innovative three month elective
course which enables service oriented medical students to preserve their
sense of meaning and calling and bring their full humanity to their work.
Like all of ISHI's programs The Healer's Art is a discovery model which
integrates small group discussion of personal and professional experience
with experiential learning, reflection contemplation and didactic teaching.
The course was featured in U.S News & World Report's special issue Best
Graduate Schools 2001 and for the past ten years has been one of the
most popular electives at the UCSF School of Medicine. ISHI has developed
ways to enable others to successfully replicate this elective at their medical
schools and welcomes inquiries from interested faculty and students.
The newest of ISHI's programs, Finding Meaning in Medicine (FMM),
is a outreach program which enables physicians to explore the meaning of
their work through self-directed storytelling groups at their medical centers
and in their communities. Since October 2000, more than 60 of these groups
have been established by physicians nationwide. FMM groups are extremely
simple to organize, require no institutional or other financial support
and have a profound effect on participating physicians at all levels of
training. Physicians nationwide report a deepening of their sense of satisfaction
and joy in their work and a renewed sense of community within the profession
. As one participating physician put it, "This is like an AA for Recovering
Doctors." ISHI has developed a free FMM starter kit for physicians
interested in beginning a group at their work site and is available for
ongoing consultation, colleagueship and support. The Finding Meaning in Medicine website is up and running.