Practice & Presence: A Gathering for Christians in Health Care

September 12-13, 2025
Friday, September 12, 2025 | 2:00pm -
Saturday, September 13, 2025 | 5:00pm
Registration for Practice & Presence is open! Early registration pricing is available through July 13, 2025. Reduced rates are available for students, trainees, and clergy. 
Practice & Presence 2023 plenary session with John Swinton and Farr Curlin in Goodson Chapel.
In-person For Alumni For Clergy For Medical Professionals Credit Offered

About Practice & Presence

Are you a Christian in health care who longs to connect your work with your Christian commitments? Do you believe that the church should matter for modern health care? One weekend each fall, nurses, physicians, therapists, chaplains, and other health care practitioners gather together with students and alumni of Duke Divinity School to: 

  • Tune our eyes and hearts to see how God is present in our work in healthcare 
  • Engage scripture, theology, and Christian history—open to how our imaginations and practices might be transformed 
  • Grow in friendship with each other in the context of shared meals, conversation, prayer, and worship 
  • Rest, reflect, and respond to God’s love for us and the world. 

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I love attending Practice & Presence -- it is the one non-negotiable conference in my CME schedule each year. There is no other space I inhabit that so beautifully merges the dual vocational streams of medicine and Christian faith that are so vital to my self-understanding and ministry of healthcare.

Plenary Speakers

Jeff Baker, MD, PhD
Director, Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine; Professor of Pediatrics and History, Duke School of Medicine
Victoria Yunez Behm, MS, MTS, CNS, LDN
Ph.D. Student, University of North Carolina; Fellow, Program on Integrative Medicine, UNC School of Medicine; Program Coordinator, Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative, Duke Divinity School
Farr Curlin, MD
Josiah C. Trent Professor of Medical Humanities, Duke University Medical School; Co-Director, Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative, Duke Divinity School
Danielle Ellis wearing a navy blazer and gold earrings
Danielle Ellis, MD, MTS
Chief Surgical Resident, Massachusetts General Hospital
Harrison Hines smiling wearing a grey blazer, white shirt, and yellow tie
Harrison Hines, MD
Neurologist; Senior Advisor for Healthcare Operations to the Veterans Health Administration Chief of Staff
Warren Kinghorn, MD, ThD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center; Esther Colliflower Associate Professor of the Practice of Pastoral and Moral Theology, Duke Divinity School; Co-Director, Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative
Mari Lowe
Mari Lowe, CRNP
Nurse Practitioner at Christ House, Washington, DC
Brett McCarty, ThD
Assistant Research Professor of Theological Ethics & Associate Director of the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative, Duke Divinity School; Assistant Professor in Population Health Sciences, Duke University
Abraham Nussbaum, MD
Interim Chief Academic Officer, Denver Health; Professor of Psychiatry & Assistant Dean of Graduate Medical Education, University of Colorado School of Medicine
John Swinton, BD, PhD, RMN, RNMD
Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies at the School of Divinity, History, and Philosophy, University of Aberdeen; Consulting Faculty, Duke Divinity School
Matthew Whelan
Matthew Whelan, PhD
Associate Research Professor of Theology, Duke Divinity School
Norbert Wilson, PhD
Professor of Public Policy; Professor of Food, Economics & Community at Duke Divinity School; Director, Duke World Food Policy Center
Emmy Yang, MD, MTS
Resident Physician in Internal Medicine, University of North Carolina Health System

Register for Practice & Presence

Early registration pricing is available through July 13, 2025. Reduced rates are available for students, trainees, and clergy. 

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