A leader in medical humanities, who has created and implemented new curricula for two campuses, including the new master’s in medical humanities, Nicole Piemonte, PhD, received the annual Kingfisher Award Wednesday during the Presidential Town Hall.
Piemonte is assistant dean of student affairs for the medical school in Phoenix, assistant professor of medical humanities and the Peekie Nash Carpenter Endowed Chair in Medicine and has been instrumental in making humanities a core element of Creighton medical student formation.
The medical humanities help future physicians and health care professionals see that medicine is about more than biological functions; it is a study of the human condition, she said.
“The medical humanities help students recognize vulnerability, their own and their patients,” Piemonte said. “It prepares them to see and then confront and respond to suffering, pain, death – and also birth and joy and humor and connection.
“The medical humanities, and Creighton and the Kingfisher Institute’s support of the medical humanities, allows our students to be fully human, so that they can fully show up for their patients when they need it most.”
Through her work, Piemonte honors Creighton’s mission to stimulate critical and creative thinking and provide ethical perspectives for dealing with an increasingly complex world.
“It’s hard for my colleagues outside of Creighton to begin to understand how our University, both in and outside the School of Medicine, has supported and encouraged the work I do in the medical humanities. I know that it has much to do with our commitment to the Jesuit tradition and Ignatian pedagogy,” she said.
Creighton’s Kingfisher Institute integrates liberal arts education to all professional schools. In her acceptance speech, Piemonte described the Institute as “committed to forming a different kind of professional. One that says a Creighton doctor, a Creighton lawyer, dentist, OT, nurse will be a different kind of professional and a different kind of person. One who embodies the virtues of a liberal education—they are deep thinking, virtuous, humble and committed to social justice.”
She thanked many Creighton colleagues for their support and accepted the award with Creighton’s mission in mind.
“I accept this award on behalf of our students who are learning how to be courageous, open-hearted healers – and of course on behalf of patients and their families who are, at the end of the day, the ones who any of this work is for.”
Piemonte is the author of two books, Afflicted: How Vulnerability Can Heal Medical Education and Practice and Death and Dying, coming out September 2021.
This year was also the first time an honorable mention category was named.
Matt Seevers, PhD, professor and associate dean, and Debbie Wells, PhD, associate professor and interim chair of the Department of Accounting and Business Intelligence and Analytics, both of the Heider College of Busines, and Rebecca Murray, PhD, professor and associate dean, Amy Wendling, PhD, professor, Holly Ann Harris, PhD, professor and associate dean for the natural sciences, from the College of Arts and Sciences, established the newly created Kingfisher Concentrations, part of the Heider Mindset Curriculum, connecting otherwise separate areas of study.
Through the leadership of Seevers, concentrations enrich the academic experience for both business and arts and sciences students, giving them greater exposure and space to explore another field.
The Kingfisher Award is presented by the Office of the President in partnership with the Kingfisher Institute to recognize a member of the Creighton community who demonstrates the creative application of humanities principles and practices and integrates the humanities and other disciplines or professions.
