LEWISTON – St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, Stephens Memorial Hospital and Franklin Memorial Hospital are participating in Maine Humanities Council’s Literature and Medicine Program.

The program offers health care professionals such as physicians, nurses, counselors, administrators, social workers, chaplains and trustees the opportunity to read and come together to discuss selected literature.

From January through June, groups of 10 to 25 participants (staff and colleagues from the same facility) meet monthly to discuss fiction, poetry, drama and nonfiction readings with a common theme: caregiving to the well, sick or dying. The discussions are facilitated by humanities scholars.

Participants develop greater self-awareness, sensitivity and understanding of diverse perspectives on issues such as communication, emotional support and direct caregiving to patients and their families.