Welcome! I’m Deborah Bayer, writer and workshop facilitator.
I am (mostly) retired from the practice of Infectious Disease and Palliative Care. I write poems and personal essays, and I’m working on a memoir about the need for emotional support in the workplace.
I facilitate writing groups via Zoom. These groups blend the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) methodology with the Narrative Medicine workshop format.
Visit my Shop to see the upcoming workshops.
A Rope Made of Bandages
Poems by Deborah Bayer
AWA Workshops
The supportive approach of the AWA method lends itself to healing from all kinds of trauma, including the trauma of medical training.
Stay Connected
My Substack newsletter, Healers Write, Writers Heal is published biweekly.
Blog Archive
How to Grieve
Several years ago, I read one of my poems, “I’m Still Your Doctor,” at the World AIDS Day memorial service, I was surprised that my voice broke as I spoke. I felt ambushed by my feelings. But that’s the nature of grief, especially for healthcare workers. We...
The Creative Process
Creativity can come from the collision of unrelated things. A poem can be a container to hold these collisions. Sometimes, the combination of ideas is rational. When I wrote “Window to the Bay,” I combined dead vegetable matter and a patient’s necrotic toe into...
Reflections on the Challenge
A Summary of the Month’s Posts on Micro-Transformations I read through all of my posts backward, from Z back to A. My thoughts are well represented. I have transformed myself and continue to transform myself by taking small steps. And I've defined what I have...