Creative Care: The Vital Role of the Humanities in Healthcare

This presentation is part of the UMSN Health Equity Leadership Series hosted by the Office of Health Equity and Inclusion. The Health Equity Leadership Series is a speaker series that welcomes leaders in the fields of nursing and healthcare to share their expertise and engage members of the UM community in critical thinking, learning, and dialogue about topics in health equity. Our goal is to expose UM faculty, staff, students, and alumni to some of the most pressing and relevant topics in health equity and nursing. Attendees will be challenged to learn, unlearn, and expand upon their own views while also networking with leaders who have a demonstrated commitment to advancing equity in healthcare.

In this presentation, Shirley Stephenson calls upon us to re-discover the humanity of nursing, specifically as a means to care for, sustain, and express oneself as a nurse. We will consider how engagement with the arts can foster humility, highlight our interconnectedness, and restore both energy and purpose. Attunement to our own creativity can also help us reimagine healthcare systems—and our roles within them—that perpetuate exclusion and inequity. Ms. Stephenson will speak through the lens of a poet and nurse practitioner with clinical experience in primary care, HIV, and substance use.

Shirley Stephenson is a Clinical Practice Nurse Educator at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Nursing and family nurse practitioner at UI Health. She is also the Poet in Residence at UIC’s new Institute of Addiction and Mental Health. Her experience and interests include HIV prevention (PrEP), family planning, adolescent health, medication-assisted treatment for opioid-use disorder, LGBTQ-inclusive healthcare, and preventive services, including screenings, immunizations, and nutrition counseling.