How Rutgers Health’s Literary Journal Connects Medicine and Art

The annual publication Ars Literarium provides a creative outlet for medical students and health care workers and fosters empathy and compassion

Rutgers Health has been at the forefront of innovation, but it isn’t just about cutting-edge technology and groundbreaking research: Once a year, this community channels both its compassion and creativity to publish a literary journal where faculty, staff and students express themselves.

Ars Literarium is the brainchild of Sanjila Islam, who received her doctor of medicine degree from Rutgers in 2019.

Recognizing the role of art in healing, Islam, then a first-year medical student at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (NJMS), founded the publication in 2016 through The Healthcare Foundation of NJ Center for Humanism and Medicine.
The literary journal, which is published annually, serves as a creative safe space where Rutgers Health’s faculty, staff and students express themselves through narrative medicine. Submissions are solicited via email from throughout Rutgers Health and selected by a team of student editors and faculty advisors.

Derived from Latin, Ars Literarium means “the art of literature.” Islam said the publication goes beyond creative expression to invite medical students, staff and health care workers to explore their innermost thoughts and feelings, often tapping into vulnerabilities that are more easily conveyed through various artistic channels.

Contributions range from poetry and short stories reflecting on experiences of those in medicine involved with patient care and issues such as depression and race relations to visual art capturing the essence of travel and sketches of anatomical structures, such as the lungs and the heart.

By encouraging contributors to channel their emotions into words and images, Ars Literarium fosters self-reflection, compassion and empathy.

“The art of medicine is an indispensable part of being a physician, not only in the many nuances of clinical reasoning, but also in working with patients and the challenges that it brings,” said Islam, noting the publication uses compelling visuals and narratives as tools for stress management and emotional healing for its contributors. “The ability to reflect, learn from prospectives of others, and collectively grow through art have become, for some of us, a way of reasoning and working through the vicissitudes of our own lives. Some of the writing pieces shared in Ars Literarium are both cathartic and an eloquent reminder that words themselves heal.”

The art of medicine is an indispensable part of being a physician, not only in the many nuances of clinical reasoning, but also in working with patients and the challenges that it brings.

Sanjila Islam

Rutgers New Jersey Medical School Class of 2019 & Ars Literarium Founder

The 10th volume of the publication was recently released, continuing to serve as a platform for reflection and artistic exploration for Rutgers Health. As a digital publication, it provides broad accessibility, with a select number of printed copies reserved for those featured in the issue.

“Ars Literarium has evolved to become one of our signature initiatives,” said Tanya Norment, program administrator at The Healthcare Foundation of NJ Center for Humanism and Medicine at NJMS.

The publication released an additional special issue during the COVID-19 pandemic, dedicated to the profound impact the pandemic had on health care workers and patients and its impact is amplified with each issue.

“I’ve been amazed at the incredible submissions from across Rutgers Health that capture the many aspects of the healthcare worker experience so poignantly. One example is the special edition that focused on the dual pandemics highlighting so much of what our nation was dealing with at the time. These pieces continue to be so moving to me,” said Manasa Ayyala, an associate professor of medicine at NJMS, director of The Healthcare Foundation of NJ Center for Humanism and Medicine and coadviser for Ars Literarium.

“I have had the privilege to serve as a faculty advisor for this project and have watched it evolve over the past 10 years,” said Andrew Berman, an NJMS professor of medicine and Ars Literarium’s faculty adviser. “It has been a sheer joy to see the creative submissions from the Rutgers Health community and observe how the students put them all together into a quality literary publication.”

A team of NJMS students have been the driving force behind the publication – and each year there is a new team for a new publication edition. Roles include editor-in-chief, associate editor, art/literary editor and graphic designers.

I’ve been amazed at the incredible submissions from across Rutgers Health that capture the many aspects of the healthcare worker experience so poignantly.

Manasa Ayyala

Associate Professor of Medicine, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School

“I heard of Ars Literarium through friends, and I was interested because humanities was a large part of my undergraduate career and application to medical school,” said Rebecca Ho, who was editor and chief of Ars Literarium, Volume IX. “I was a biology and visual arts major, and I was very excited to find that there was an organization at Rutgers that promoted humanities, literature, and art.”

“A poem titled The Day My Stethoscope Heard Nothing [Summer 2023], stands out to me as the reason why it’s important to create a space like Ars Literarium to highlight the myriad of experiences of health care workers,” Ayyala said. “This piece describes the experience of Dr. Nicholas Bellacicco, a neurology resident at NJMS, listening to a patient who has died and reflecting on how no one taught him to ‘hear nothing.’ It is such a poignant reflection on the importance of narrative to help us process and self-reflect.” 

Visit Ars Literarium to view current and past issues.

Video: Lavene Gass & Paul Gogliormella