Community members and Loma Linda University Health leaders, practitioners, faculty, staff and students are invited to explore developments in the teaching and practice of whole person care during the 7th Annual Spiritual Life and Wholeness Conference on Jan. 16 (5:30–8:30 p.m.) and 17 (10:30 a.m.–6:00 p.m.), 2015. The conference will take place in the Chen Fong Conference Center, Centennial Complex.
Attendees will learn practical ways of integrating spirituality in the health care setting. The conference is sponsored by the Loma Linda University Center for Spiritual Life and Wholeness.
The keynote speaker is Thomas Hutchinson, MB, BCh, BAO, director, McGill University programs in whole person care and editor of the book “Whole Person Care.” Featured speakers include Gregory Fricchione, MD, director, psychiatry and medicine divisions and of the international psychiatry division, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Hedy S. Wald, PhD, clinical associate professor of family medicine, Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University.
Also during the two-day event, 20 additional speakers from numerous entities throughout Loma Linda University Health will share exciting developments on campus in the area of whole person care.
“This year’s conference,” says Carla Gober Park, PhD, MS, MPH, director, Center for Spiritual Life and Wholeness, “will examine a holistic, 360-degree perspective, highlighting and actively strategizing whole person care across our campus.”
A highlight of the 2015 conference will be an innovative film-based illness narrative that explores one man, one diagnosis, and one story over time. Participants will also have the opportunity to hear about a new documentary film on the history of whole person care and interact with the film director.
According to Gober-Park, the conference has always been offered at no charge for Loma Linda University Health employees and students on the campus, with many referring to it as a "Sabbath gift."
An optional third day (Sunday the 18th), will feature a reflective writing workshop led by Wald. She oversees reflective writing curriculum in family medicine at Brown University. This $35 workshop will include didactic and interactive learning exploring the concept of fostering reflection in health care education and practice, formal analytic frameworks to enhance the educational value of feedback to students’ reflective writing, and development of a reflective, collaborative practitioner.
Please register for the conference (and/or the reflective writing workshop) at llu.edu/wholepersoncareconference by Jan. 9. The conference is complimentary to Loma Linda University Health employees and students and costs $40 for guests and members of the community. The reflective writing workshop has a separate $35 fee.