One of the speakers at a conference at St. Mary’s will be a physician who is also a poet.

LEWISTON – The Maine Humanities Council will hold a daylong conference for health-care providers on Saturday, Oct. 25, at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center.

Attendees of “Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care” will explore the connection between literature, culture and health care with three nationally-known writers and with colleagues from across New England.

The keynote speaker is Arthur Kleinman, a major figure in medical anthropology and cross-cultural psychiatry. He is the Rabb Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University. The author of “The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing & the Human Condition” and “Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture,” he is also a consultant to the World Health Organization. In 2001, he received the Franz Boas Award from the American Anthropological Association.

His talk is on “Suffering, Culture and Care: How the Moral Basis of Health Care is Threatened in Our Era.”

Rafael Campo, a physician and award-winning poet, will speak about how literature has helped him better appreciate, reflect upon and bridge, the often different life experiences of his patients.

Campo practices internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and teaches at Harvard Medical School. His books include “The Desire to Heal,” “What the Body Told,” “Diva” and “The Healing Art: A Doctor’s Black Bag of Poetry.”

There will also be a reading by Veneta Masson, who has practiced as a registered nurse for 35 years in community and hospital settings in the United States and abroad.

In 1978, she helped found Community Medical Care, a small, inner-city clinic in Washington, D.C. Since leaving the clinic in 1995, she’s published two books, “Rehab at the Florida Avenue Grill,” a collection of poems about some patients whose lives changed hers, and “Ninth Street Notebook: Voice of a Nurse in the City,” winner of an American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year award in 2001.

In addition to the three formal presentations, there will be small group discussions of a reading about how literature and discussion lead to better understanding of different perspectives. Books by each speaker will be available for purchase at the conference.

The $25 registration fee includes lunch. Continuing education credits are available.

To register for the conference or for more information, people can visit www.mainehumanities.org or call toll-free 1-866-MEreader or 1-866-637-3233.

The conference is co-sponsored by St. Mary’s hospital and supported by the Maine Medical Association. Additional support comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Cary Medical Center, Franklin Memorial Hospital, Maine General Medical Center, Maine Medical Center/Spring Harbor Hospital, Mayo Regional Hospital, Mid Coast Hospital, Penobscot Bay Medical Center and St. Joseph’s Health Care, as well as private donors.