Call for Applications: Re-Imagining Medicine Fellowship
What does it mean to be a good healthcare practitioner? How do we learn to care for people, not as containers of symptoms and illness, but as bearers of stories? How do we work for just, fair, humane, and equitable practices of health care? How do the arts, ethics, and history help us prepare to practice medicine with character and creativity, to develop a sense of meaning and purpose in our work, and to encourage and empower the communities we serve?
The Kenan Institute for Ethics invites first-, second-, and third-year undergraduates planning on working in health care to apply for a Re-Imagining Medicine Fellowship. The priority deadline is February 14, 2026.
PROGRAM
The Re-Imagining Medicine (ReMed) program is an interactive summer program for Duke pre-health students exploring the intersection of medicine and moral purpose. Students are invited to imagine how those working in health-related fields can use their specialized knowledge and skills with humility to care for individuals, cure and prevent disease and suffering, flourish in their chosen profession, collaborate with other professionals, and work toward the greater good.
ReMed seeks to foster the character, imagination, and practices needed to work effectively in contexts of human suffering and healing. Fellows will join with healthcare professionals and faculty from a variety of disciplines to develop practices and skills that will help them to attend closely to their own stories, to the stories of the places where they live and work, and to the stories of the communities they plan to serve. ReMed engages the medical humanities, including ethics, movement, history, visual arts, and expressive writing to help students explore themes often absent in traditional medical education.
ReMed is a program of The Purpose Project at Duke, a collaboration between the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke Divinity School, and the Office of the Provost. It is sponsored by a grant from The Duke Endowment.
COMMITMENT
The ReMed program has four primary components:
- Immersive Week: The ReMed program begins the week following commencement with an on-campus immersive week at Duke in May. This immersive week will feature shared meals and conversation, experiential learning at Duke Hospital and Duke Regional Hospital, engagement with creative writing and the visual arts, introduction to the medical humanities, and facilitated reflections on justice and equity in health care.
- Experiential Work/Service: ReMed is not a stand-alone program. To enable critical reflection on lived experiences and practices, Fellows are required to pair their participation in ReMed with an internship, employment, or service work related to health or health care over the summer. Fellows must arrange this parallel experience on their own. Practicum experiences must be at least twenty hours a week for eight weeks over the summer, and may include, but are not limited to:
- Volunteer service in a health-related setting
- Paid employment in a hospital, clinic, public health agency, or health-related company or nonprofit
- Formal Duke civic engagement or research programs, with permission from the directors of those programs
- Engagement in clinical research
- Weekly Virtual Sessions: Following this week, ReMed will meet virtually for eight weeks. Fellows and faculty will gather for weekly 90-minute online seminars to reflect on their summer experiences and to engage in conversation with leading scholars and practitioners in the medical humanities. Readings, writing exercises, and reflective practices will be assigned between seminars. These seminars will take place on Zoom from 5:00-6:15 pm ET on Thursdays:
- May 21
- May 28
- June 4
- No meeting June 11
- June 18
- June 25
- No meeting July 2
- July 9
- July 16
- July 23
- Fall ReMed Dinner Gathering: to reflect on and celebrate the summer ReMed cohort and student accomplishments.
ReMed Fellows are expected to participate fully in all components of the fellowship, including the entire immersive week, and to miss no more than one virtual Seminar.
ELIGIBLITY
If you are a current first-, second-, or third-year Duke undergraduate planning on working in health care and have interest in exploring questions of medicine and moral purpose, Reimagining Medicine (ReMed) invites you to apply for a Summer 2026 Fellowship today. The immersive week will take place May 10-15, 2026. Students should be available starting May 10, 2026 at 6pm through May 15, 2026 at 1pm. Full participation in immersive week activities is required for your application to be considered. The Reimagining Medicine Fellowship is limited to 20 students.
AWARD
For full participation in the Fellowship, Fellows will receive:
• Housing at The Lodge Hotel, located near the Duke School of Medicine (RAs and others with prior housing arrangements may opt out of the provided housing option), during the immersive week
• Meals throughout the immersive week
• $1000 honorarium
APPLY
The priority application deadline is February 14, 2026. After that time, applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until available spots are filled.
CONTACT
If you have questions about ReMed, please contact Proram Director, Warren Kinghorn or Program Coordinator, Victoria Yunez Behm.
Warren Kinghorn, MD, ThD
Faculty Director, Re-Imagining Medicine
Professor of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center
Esther Colliflower Professor of the Practice of Pastoral and Moral Theology, Duke Divinity School
warren.kinghorn@duke.edu
Victoria Yunez Behm, MS, MTS, CNS
ReMed Program Coordinator
victoria.behm@duke.edu