• Home
  • About Us
    • Sponsors
    • Executive Board
    • Advisory Board
    • Contact Us/Join Mailing List
  • Registration and Fees
  • Location and Accommodations
  • Student Scholarships
  • 2023 Plenary Speakers
  • Sunday Afternoon Workshops
  • 2023 Conference Schedule
Conference on Medicine and Religion

Designing a Well-Balanced Life:  A Workshop for Leaders

Led by Benjamin Doolittle, M.D., M.Div., Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Yale University.

This workshop will employ entrepreneurial "tech" methods to religion, spirituality, and a well-balanced life. This workshop is inspired by the book Designing Your Life by Burnett and Dave Evans who teach a course by the same name at Stanford University which 15% of the student body takes.  As former Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, they have discovered that the same method used to design tech gadgets can be used to design a well-balanced life.

This workshop will comprise four elements. First, "the need."  Data will be shared about burnout and job stress, with an emphasis on the healing professions.  This will establish the need for leaders to encourage wellness and balance in the workplace.  Second, "the complexity."  An interactive design exercise will be attempted in small groups.  This will establish how tricky it is to design complex structures and programs.  Third, the "Design Your Life" method will be introduced.  Burnett and Evans apply design strategies - prototyping, revision, etc. - to common life crises.  Fourth, small groups will be established to discuss discrete elements for a well-balanced, joyful life in four domains - finances, bodily health, emotional health, and spiritual/religious health.  Each group will then share their findings.  The goal is for leaders to have a template, a curriculum, to bring back to their institution to support their workplace wellness initiatives.