The goals of the summer seminar include:
- To refresh and stimulate the leaders and participants with challenging ideas and different perspectives.
- To give participants new ways of integrating humanistic perspectives and values into clinical settings and health professions education.
- To engage participants in theatre, creative writing, and other arts as complements to their professional work.
- To create educational materials that can be used to involve the public in much needed dialogue about health care issues.
Previous Symposia include:
- 1988-1989 – First NEH Institute for Humanities and Medicine
- 1991-1992 – Second NEH Institute for Humanities and Medicine
- 1992 – Narrative Bioethics
- 1993 – Narrative Bioethics
- 1994 – Narrative Bioethics
- 1995 – Narrative Bioethics
- 1996 – Detachment and Engagement: Objectivity and Emotions in Clinical Practice
- 1997 – Narratives of Care
- 1999 – Talking Ourselves to Death: Narratives and Caregiving at the End of Life
- 2000 – Time to Care: Narrative and Chronic Illness
- 2001 – Caring for Caregivers: Long Day’s Journey Into Night
- 2002 – Narratives of Power in Health Care
- 2003 – Mortal Beings/Immortal Dreams: Dancing Around the Fountain of Youth
- 2004 – Quartet: Four Variations on the Theme of Human Enhancement
- 2005 – Human Enhancement Technologies: Through the Looking Glass of Drama
- 2006 Global Healthcare Justice
- 2007 Leveraging Change: The Politics and Economics of Global Poverty and Health Care
- 2008 Symposium, Return to The House of God
- 2010 Symposium, The Role of Narrative in Science and Medicine: 1990 – 2010
- 2011 Symposium, On Healers and Healing
- 2014 Symposium, Age, Ability, and Healthcare
- 2016 Symposium, Emerging Diversities in Health Humanities Teaching