Bayhealth to receive humanities award April 28

Bayhealth Medical Center will receive the 2018 Joseph del Tufo Humanities Award from Delaware Humanities Saturday, April 28 at The Outlook at the Duncan Center in Dover. The ceremony will include a lecture, “What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear,” by Dr. Danielle Ofri and a dinner buffet. The event is open to the public. Tickets are $35.

Since 2008, Delaware Humanities has offered Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care. The program offers scholar-led reading and discussion groups that use works of fiction, poetry, drama and nonfiction to explore what's at the heart of healthcare. Participants come from all branches of medical care including nurses, physicians, support staff, administrators, clergy, social workers and therapists in hospitals, home health, hospice and public health settings. Some programs also admit members of the general public.

"Literature & Medicine is one of our most important and successful ongoing programs," said Delaware Humanities Program Officer Ciera Fisher. "Bayhealth Medical Center has been an active partner in the program since it began. According to a study conducted by the U.S. Veterans Administration, participants reported an 82 percent increase in empathy, a 61 percent improvement in job satisfaction and a 59 percent rise in cultural awareness."

Ofri's lecture will consider how patient/caregiver conversations can lead to improved health outcomes by ensuring that what patients say and what doctors hear are actually the same things. Ofri is an associate professor of medicine at the NYU School of Medicine and author of titles such as “What Doctors Feel, What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear,” and “Medicine in Translation: Journeys with My Patients.”

The Joseph del Tufo Humanities Award is named in honor of its first recipient, who served as a University of Delaware and Delaware State University professor and served on the Delaware Humanities Council.