Education Keynote
The Health Humanities: The Next Great Frontier in Emergency Medicine Education
Kamna Balhara, MD, MA
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine
Johns Hopkins University
Leading healthcare organizations, including the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), have emphasized that the arts and humanities are integral to education in healthcare. The rapidly growing applications
of the arts and humanities in medical education represent an important leading edge for innovation and leadership. As a dynamic specialty that has always been at the vanguard of innovation, emergency medicine (EM) is uniquely equipped to be at the
forefront of this exciting movement in medical education.
This talk will specifically explore the health humanities, which leverages arts- and humanities-based disciplines to understand health and health care by addressing two big questions: What are the broader historical, cultural, and societal factors that
impact health and the provision of care, and what does that mean for our individual experiences as people, physicians, and patients? A robust evidence base indicates that the health humanities represent an important pedagogical and scholarly
framework to empower clinicians to be better communicators, effective advocates, and critical thinkers, while providing crucial tools for longevity and resilience in one’s career.
The 21st century has brought fresh challenges to practicing medicine — including extraordinary technological advances, persistent disparities in healthcare, and growing threats to clinician well-being – and the health humanities represent an innovative educational approach towards preparing any emergency physician, at any time, and at any place, to meet these challenges. Leveraging opportunities for audience reflection, drawing upon existing evidence, and highlighting concrete examples from EM departments across the country, this talk will elaborate upon how and why EM is uniquely positioned to advance medical education through the health humanities for the benefit of learners, educators, and patients alike.
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine
Johns Hopkins University
Dr. Kamna Balhara is an associate professor of emergency medicine (EM) and an associate director of the EM Residency Program at Johns Hopkins University. After obtaining a master’s degree in French Cultural Studies from Columbia University, she completed medical school and residency at Johns Hopkins, serving as chief resident.
Dr. Balhara is an innovator in the health humanities and has experience with implementing humanities curricula for medical students, residents, and faculty from across specialties. She is a founder and co-director of the Health Humanities at Hopkins EM initiative, which offers social justice and humanities-based programming to institution, community, and national audiences. She also directs a unique longitudinal interdisciplinary institution-wide health equity and humanities track for residents and fellows across Johns Hopkins. She has been invited to speak to national audiences on the humanities in medicine and was selected as a Harvard Macy Institute Art Museum-Based Health Professions Education Fellow.
Her scholarly interests revolve around equity and inclusion in clinical and learning environments. She has authored multiple publications on graduate medical education, humanities, social determinants of health, and disparities in health care access, and has developed tools and resources for other educators seeking to apply the humanities towards equity in health care and health professions education. Her work has been funded by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the Josiah Macy Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Emergency Medicine Foundation. She serves on the steering committee for the National Health Humanities Consortium, is chair of the DEI committee of the Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine, chair of the education subcommittee of SAEM's Equity and Inclusion committee, and is a member of the editorial board of the SAEM journal Academic Emergency Medicine.
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