MEET OUR TEAM
Pamela Schaff, MD, PhD
Director
(323) 442-1763
pschaff@med.usc.edu
Pamela Schaff, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Medical Education, Family Medicine, and Pediatrics (Educational Scholar), and Director of the HEAL (Humanities, Ethics, Art, and Law) Program and the Master of Science in Narrative Medicine Program at the Keck School of Medicine (KSOM) of the University of Southern California (USC). She received her B.A. from Pomona College, her M.D. from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and her Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from USC. She completed her residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and maintains her clinical pediatric practice in the department of Family Medicine at Keck Medicine of USC.
Dr. Schaff previously served as director of the Introduction to Clinical Medicine Program, and as associate dean for curriculum for KSOM. She was a member of the Association of American Medical College (AAMC) Humanities and Arts Integration Committee, charged with determining and advancing the role of the humanities and arts in medical education and physician development.
In addition to teaching in the MD and Narrative Medicine Programs, Dr. Schaff designs curriculum that integrates arts and humanities instruction in courses, clerkships, and electives through all four years of the medical school curriculum. She is the recipient of numerous awards for excellence in teaching and mentoring. Her current areas of investigation include professional identity formation, narrative medicine, and the role of the arts and humanities in medical education.
Erika Wright, PhD
Associate Director
ewright@usc.edu
Erika Wright, PhD holds a PhD in English from the University of Southern California. She has appointments as a Lecturer in the English Department (University Park Campus) and as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medical Education at KSOM and is the Associate Director of the HEAL (Humanities, Ethics, Art, and Law) Program at USC. Dr. Wright’s book, Reading for Health: Medical Narratives and the Nineteenth-Century Novel (2016), examines the rhetoric of disease prevention and health maintenance in works by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Elizabeth Gaskell. She has contributed entries on health and disease to the Companion to Victorian Popular Fiction and her articles on medicine and literature, graduate education, and medical professionalism appear in Studies in the Novel, the Midwestern Modern Language Association journal, and From Reading to Healing: Teaching Medical Professionalism through Literature. Erika has won several teaching awards, and in addition to teaching courses on the British literature survey, Science Fiction, and Women in Literature for the English Department, she brings her expertise in narrative theory and close reading to the Narrative Medicine Workshops she has designed and taught for the HEAL Program.
HEAL Program Team
Ted Meyer
Ted Meyer is a nationally recognized artist, curator and patient advocate who helps patients, students and medical professionals see the positive in the worst life can offer. His 18-year project “Scarred for Life: Mono-prints of Human Scars” chronicles the trauma and courage of people who have lived through accidents and health crises. Mixing art, medicine, and stories of healing and survival, Ted’s work draws from his experience as a lifelong patient of Gaucher Disease (an enzyme deficiency that affects bones and joints). Ted has been featured on NPR and in the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and USA Today. His work has been displayed internationally in museums, hospitals, and galleries. As the current Artist in Residence at USC Keck School of Medicine, Ted curates exhibitions of artwork by patients whose subject matter coincides with medical school curriculum (MS, cancer, germ phobias, back pain, and other diseases). In addition, he is a Visiting Scholar at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, invited to take part in the Aspen Seminars, was recently named the 2017 Sterling Visiting Professorship at Stanford University, and has been a TEDMED mainstage speaker.
Abigail Rasminsky, MFA
Abigail Rasminsky holds an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where she served as a Teaching Fellow in the Undergraduate Creative Writing program, the nonfiction editor of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, and studied in the Master’s Program in Narrative Medicine. A former professional modern dancer, Abigail writes about the body, pain, dance, and various issues around motherhood, pregnancy and reproductive health. Her essays have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Cut, O: The Oprah Magazine, Cup of Jo, Marie Claire, Longreads, Healthline, The Forward, Dance Teacher, Dance Spirit (where she was an editor), and Dance Magazine, where she’s a contributing writer. She has taught writing through the HEAL Program; at Webster University in Vienna, Austria; at Columbia University’s Summer Program; and at high schools all over New York City and Vienna, Austria. She also teaches private workshops for women, and leads the popular Instagram writing program, Abby’s Secret Summer School.
Paige Tonks, MEd
Paige Tonks, MEd , is a higher education professional with the Department of Medical Education and the MS in Narrative Medicine Program at the Keck School of Medicine. She received her bachelor’s degree in Classical Voice from the USC Thornton School of Music and her MEd from the USC Rossier School of Education with an emphasis in Post-Secondary Administration and Student Affairs.
Jimena Patino
Jimena Patino is a marketing assistant with the Department of Medical Education and the MS in Narrative Medicine Program at the Keck School of Medicine. She received her bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Business Analytics at California State University, Northridge.
HEAL Program Committee Members
Ron Ben-Ari, MD, FACP
(323) 442-1763
Ron Ben-Ari, MD, FACP, completed his medical school and internal medicine training at the Keck School of Medicine (KSOM) of the University of Southern California (USC) and joined the USC Department of Medicine faculty in 1992 and the Department of Medical Education in 2021. He is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and Medical Education (Educational Scholar) and was appointed KSOM Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education in 2023. Dr. Ben-Ari served as the Assistant Dean for Curriculum (2012-2016); Associate Dean for Curriculum (2016-2023); Associate Dean for CME (2012-2023); Director of the USC Internal Medicine Medical Student Program (1992-2009); Director of the Internal Medicine Residency Training Program (1995-2011); and Vice Chair for Educational Affairs in the Department of Medicine (2009-2016). He served on the WGEA Steering Committee as the representative for the section on Continuing Professional Development (2014-2018) and was a member of the Board of Directors of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (2018-2023).
Ronan Hallowell, EdD, MA
Ronan Hallowell, EdD, MA is an assistant professor of clinical medical education at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. He is Director of the Health Justice and Systems of Care required longitudinal course in the MD program. Dr. Hallowell is a founding faculty member in the Narrative Medicine M.S. degree program at Keck and a faculty affiliate at the Gehr Family Center for Health Systems Science. He serves as an associate director of the USC Center for Mindfulness Science and the Keck PI for the AMA ChangeMedEd grant “Assessing Health Systems Science in Clinical Environments.” Dr. Hallowell also serves on the advisory boards for the Social Mission Alliance based out of the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity at George Washington University and the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine Ecological Medicine and Psychedelic Studies Initiative. He conducts research on curriculum design, health justice education, the medical humanities, and cross-cultural perspectives on medicine.
Emily Beers, MD
Emily Beers, MD is a palliative care physician at Los Angeles General Medical Center and a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine (LAGMC) at Keck School of Medicine. Dr. Beers completed her medical school training at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and her internship and residency in plastic surgery at the University of Rochester Medical Center. After time in private practice, Dr. Beers completed her fellowship training in hospice and palliative medicine at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University. She is currently completing a masters in bioethics at Loyola University Chicago.
Danica B. Liberman, MD
Danica Liberman, MD MPH, is an attending physician in the Division of Emergency and Transport Medicine at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Population and Public Health Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, and an affiliate of the Gehr Family Center for Health Systems Science & Innovation at USC. Her research interests include health services research, population health, and quality improvement. She directs the Health Justice and Systems of Care Seminar course at KSOM, teaches within the MPH program, and is Faculty Advisor to the MD/MPH dual-degree students at USC. At the undergraduate level, she is the co-founder and lead Professor of two pre-health undergraduate USC courses taught on site at CHLA focusing on pediatric clinical research and addressing social determinants of health, which have graduated dozens of students into medical school and other fields within healthcare, enhanced the research productivity of the Division, and assisted numerous families in identifying and connecting to the community resources they need. She has been an active member of the Ethics Resource Committee at CHLA for over a decade. She received her undergraduate degree in History from Yale University, her medical degree from Brown Medical School, and her master’s in public health from the University of Southern California.
Sabrina Derrington, MD, MA, HEC-C
Sabrina Derrington, MD, MA, HEC-C is an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Keck School of Medicine, Attending Physician in Critical Care Medicine and the Director of the Center for Bioethics at CHLA. Dr. Derrington completed her pediatric internship, residency and a fellowship in pediatric critical care medicine at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles after receiving her medical degree from the UC Davis School of Medicine. She also has a master’s in Bioethics and Health Policy from Loyola University Chicago.