In the early years of her career, Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, felt alone and hoped…
Honoring and Remembering Dr. Rachel Remen
It is with a sad and heavy heart that we announce the death of Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, founder of the Remen Institute for the Study of Health & Illness (RISHI). Rachel died peacefully at home under hospice care on the morning of Aug. 8 surrounded by her loving family.
During this time of grief and loss, we are filled with gratitude for the gift of Rachel and the impact of her work throughout the world. Her message of wholeness, calling, and a need for maintaining meaning and purpose in medicine will leave a lasting legacy.
Since 1991, RISHI has provided education and support programs for health professionals who aspire to bring their hearts into their work and are dedicated to practicing a medicine of service, human connection, and compassionate healing.
In 2019, RISHI joined with Ohio’s Hospice as part of Pure Healthcare to continue providing innovative tools and resources, and further their mission of healing the culture of healthcare through educational programs and the formation of supportive communities.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver
Rachel challenged us all to live out our calling and live a whole and authentic life. Let us be the light that lives on from her teaching.
Memorial services are being planned. Please feel free to share a story or condolence in the comments below. We will share them with Rachel’s family.
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May her light forever shine in a world that needs her now more than ever. My thoughts and prayers for her family, friends and everyone else (including myself) that have been profoundly and eternally impacted by her love, authenticity, and presence.
Much love to all who learned, lived, and loved because of Dr. Remen. I came across her book Kitchen Table wisdom, when I had just moved to the SF bay from Indiana and I was parenting two exceptional needs daughters. I was exploring and grappling with so many different things – much of it alone. Dr. Rachel’s words were so comforting to my heart and expanded my mind in a way that I will always be grateful for – as a counselor, parent, partner, and person. May those who grieve her be comforted – knowing her legacy is love.
Dr. Remember has been a source of inspiration from her influence and work in establishing Healer’s Art . She is very much alive in all her students and her influence will remain. Thanks Dr. Remen!
I wish I had the blessing of meeting Dr. Remen in life, and yet she SO touched my life from her words and works. In particular, I’ll never forget a conversation where she encouraged another struggling physician to ‘be happy anyway’ within the system of medicine we know to be broken. On a more personal level, I knew all too well the striving for the “missing” 2% to make 100 on a test and the impact that had on my life, as well as her comments on approval being the flipside of judgment and about as healthy for my soul as cotton candy would be for my body. THANK YOU Dr. Remen for having our backs in so many ways. I will continue to seek your wisdom as I figure out how to BE in my ONE wild and precious life!
What an auspicious day to transition! 8/8/26. May her memory be a blessing. I will never forget the time I spent with her.
Dr Remen’s work has touched people around the world, making the experience of health care more humane for practitioners and patients. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to meet Rachel and to bring her ideas to students at Monash University. My sincere condolences to her family and to the RISHI community.
During a very trying time with hospitalization for inflammatory bowel disease, not working for 5 months and following a fellow physician’s suicide 20 years ago, I was introduced to Dr. Remen’s books and Finding Meaning in Medicine. Her work played a large part in my recovery and return to work. We started a Finding Meaning in Medicine group to help support our medical staff.
I planted daffodils in my yard to bloom in spring. Thinking at the time if I did not live until spring, maybe my children would remember/think of me each year when the daffodils bloomed.
Now the planting of daffodils has grown into a large bed of daffodils. So many daffodils, I cut them and share them in the office and hospital each year. I share the story of healing that was helped by Dr. Remen!
For Rachel
She knew
that the wounded heart
could still be whole,
that listening
could be medicine,
and that every life
carried a story
worth hearing.
Now she has gone
where all the great mysteries go-
leaving us the question
she spent a lifetime answering:
With this one precious life,
how will you serve?
As a medical student in Japan, my English teacher recommended “Kitchen Table Wisdom” to me during my third year. At a time when I was questioning whether I had made the right choice in entering medical school, this book gave me hope for a future as a doctor. Holistic medicine may be easy to talk about, but it’s difficult to put into practice.
I traveled from Japan twice to attend her workshops, and she presented me with a Japanese translation of her books. I still vividly remember her intellectual approach—how she would immediately apply insights gained during the workshops to new exercises—and, above all, her poise, which embodied her very way of life.
By a twist of fate, I am now working in Germany, but I believe that putting what I learned from Rachel into practice wherever I am in the world is the greatest tribute I can pay to her, and I will continue on my path in medicine. May she rest in peace. My prayers go out to her family, friends, and everyone connected to Rachel.
May her Soul Rest in Peace.
Dr Remen was really an inspiration and a model to me in my practice and healing journey.
I remember how she lead us in the “Healer’s Art” retreat and how much it touched me personally with her Grace and compassion.
Blessings and Prayers
Assaad
I was indeed fortunate to train in the Power of Nursing in Dr. Remen’s home years ago. It was almost unbelievable that she would host the training in her own home, but it solidified for me her true investment in RISHI and belief in the foundational principles of the Power of Nursing. I have tried to carry her message far and wide and all those who are exposed are forever changed in some way. She was an innovator and a pioneer–many say they are, but few truly are. The profession of medicine and those of us in related disciplines have lost a beacon of authenticity, a leader in resilience, a role model in a judgement free approach to healing, and a kind and caring soul. She will be sorely missed.
I met Rachel in 1992 when I was a second year medical student at UCSF. We went on to start the first Healer’s Art class! I was proud to connect her with the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine and she influenced so many of us in our work with patients and our own inner journeys.
Blessings, my dear friend of so many years. Your wisdom, equanimity, eloquence, and grace live on in the innumerable people you touched — and through them, and through the stories they carry of you, you will go on forever. Thank you for teaching so many of us how to truly listen, how to find the blessing hidden in the wound, and how to be whole.
Some years ago, I asked my friend Ellen for a book recommendation for a friend with breast cancer. She said, “Kitchen table wisdom” by Rachael Naomi Remen. “But it’s not about cancer.” I said. “That’s right,” replied Ellen. “It’s about living well.” I have loved that book ever since and kept it by my bedside for years at a time. And I’ve given it and her book, “My grandfather’s blessings” to many friends when times called for healing. Rest in peace dear Rachael.
Twenty-three and a half years ago, when I was newly sober, I wandered into a Barnes & Noble and came across My Grandfather’s Blessings. The title immediately caught my attention because I adored my own grandfather. Naturally, I picked it up.
I opened the book and could not stop reading.
From the first words, Rachel Naomi Remen’s stories captivated me. I was moved in a way that is difficult to put into words. Her writing was so accessible and deeply human, yet carried extraordinary spiritual depth. Again and again, I found myself returning to those stories.
Over the years, something remarkable happened: I began to feel as though I knew Rachel’s grandfather, too. The lessons he gave to her, and that she so generously gave to all of us, became part of my own spiritual inheritance. I carried them with me through my recovery and through my life.
For nearly 24 years, I have shared those lessons with people I mentor, with my clients, and with friends and family. Rachel’s work did not simply touch my life. It traveled through my life into the lives of other people. And I imagine there are countless people around the world who could say the same.
I never had the privilege of meeting Rachel, and yet I feel as though I knew her. I carry her with me in my heart and in my recovery. She has been one of my teachers for almost half of my life, and through what she taught me, she continues to teach some of the people whose lives intersect with mine.
I am profoundly grateful for Rachel, for her work, and for the grandfather whose wisdom she entrusted to all of us. What a beautiful lineage of love, wisdom, healing, and service.
My deepest condolences to her family, friends, colleagues, students, and to everyone who loved her and was touched by her extraordinary life and work.
May Rachel Naomi Remen’s memory be a blessing. And may the blessings she gave so freely continue to move from life to life, generation to generation.
I met Naomi Remen around 1980 in San Francisco when I was studying psychosynthesis. We were in a class together. I so valued our conversations. My favorite book of hers is Kitchen Table Wisdom. Very rich in so many ways. May she rest in peace 🙂
The world has lost a loving soul, a dedicated physician and teacher and one of my greatest mentors. As a beautiful Jewish woman, Rachel taught me more about love than anyone in my seminary classes. She trained me at Commonweal to facilitate the cancer retreats that I loved and advised me on the creation of a retreat center for cancer patients and their families. A best selling author, she always told me I should write a book and now, at age 79, I have finally done that. She used part of my personal cancer story in her second book in 2201 and spurred me on to take my writing more seriously. I will be forever grateful for the times I was with her and the years I have spent following her wisdom.
My Grandfathers Blessings: the wisdom, the compassion, the insights have changed the way I look at life. I have used it as a devotional multiple times. I always keep 2-3 copies on hand to share with others as gifts. Rachel’s hear and intelligence and empathy taught me so much. Right after I learned that I am over 40% Jewish background I accidentally discovered My Grandfathers Blessings. It touched my heart in ways I did not know I needed. Thank you!
I have read & reread both Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings plus there’s underlined quotes on nearly every page that have & continue to inspire me.
I wish I could have met her in person. What a blessing she’s been to me. ❤️
I live in Oklahoma and knew Dr. Remen through her books and a CD of The Will To Live & Other Mysteries read by her. I treasure them and her memory.
Dr. Remen’s remarkable book was recommended to me in a grief-support group my husband and I attended after losing his mom, his stepdad and my dad within a year’s time when we were in our 20s. It still sits on my bookshelf beside “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” I credit her work with helping me find a new, more compassionate world view after loss. Years later, I served on the board of an organization assisting the families of stillborn babies, and I recommended her book to countless grieving families. May echoes of her work ring out forever.
I was a client of hers; she was compassionate, full of wisdom and authentic. She is missed but I know her work will live on through eternity.
May all those who loved her be comforted by the gifts she gave to the healers of the world. For normalizing the humanity of the work—for allowing us all to be secret baby-kissers. We will miss her and remember her always.
I am so grateful to Dr. Remen for her books and talks. I periodically dip into and re-read Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings whenever my well runs dry, or I forget how to be curious because I’m stuck in despair or shut down. Her memory will be a blessing, and may all those touched by her light continue to cherish and share what we can.
It has been an honor to receive the gift of Healer’s Art full of learnings about the human spirit, and exploration of loss, healing and meaning in medicine. We will miss Dr. Remen, and she will live on forever in our hearts.
In the late 1990’s, I felt lost as a physician. Medical culture left me feeling that I lost something vital – my calling to service in medicine. In my darkest moments, I read Kitchen Table Wisdom by Dr. Rachel Remen and found a lifeline back to my inner self and the values that connected me to my deepest calling that included connection to my heart and soul, my relationships with others, my most cherished values, my sense of service and most of all meaning and purpose in my work and in my life. Rachel’s vision for healing stirred me deeply. She changed my life and work. I have had many amazing mentors in my life, and she was by far the one teacher who influenced me the most. Her vision was a joyful path, not just one of sacrifice. She inspired me to discover a heartfelt and courageous path in medicine that gave me joy, satisfaction and the capacity to make a positive difference in the lives of patients, student, trainees, and colleagues.
Rachel, I’ve so often written to you to thank you for all of this. I would not wait until your death to express my deep gratitude for all you have given us and me in your own courageous life full of compassion for others.
I heard Rachel speak at a national conference in 2000 and inspired by her vision and her work asked for her help in bringing the Healer’s Art elective course to the University of Wisconsin. I was astounded by her generosity. She came to our school to give a moving and inspiring plenary talk to kick off our Healer’s Art course in 2003. I directed her course there for 12 years after training with her at Commonweal. The course created a deep compassionate community for our students and faculty. I have had so many students tell me how this changed their lives and commitment to their unique calling in medicine. Finally, they felt that they were a part of a larger community of healers and embodied the principles of generous listening and compassion that Rachel taught. With grants I raised, I sent several of our Healer’s Art volunteer faculty to a retreat Rachel led called Tending the Flame. I also worked alongside her and Dr. Evange Andarsio, the current director of the Remen Institute for the Study of Health and Illness, seeing firsthand Rachel’s devotion and commitment to healing in medicine. No one can match her capacity to tell stories that teach and move us to change. I continue to be committed to teaching about her work and her legacy. I now volunteer as faculty in our University of Wisconsin Healer’s Art program.
When I was a Commonweal in 2003, I learned about the Cancer Help Program that Rachel created with others; retreats for people with cancer. I never imagined that I would face serious cancer myself. I attended 3 retreats (I needed every one!) and found so much healing and community there among staff and fellow participants. I continue to find so much support through Commonweal Healing Circles that I participate in and facilitate based on the principles that are core to the programs of RISHI, the Cancer Help Program and Healing Circles. These programs are founded on agreements that I try to live by including generous listening, the power of silence, refraining from giving advice and trying to fix or save one another, and treating each other and ourselves with kindness, respect and compassion. Yes Rachel, what gifts you have given me to live a beautiful life and have such deeply meaningful work. I am so blessed to have known you. I love you, now and forever.
Lucille Marchand, MD, BSN, FAAFP, FAAHPM
Professor Emerita, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
Some years ago, I heard an interview of Rachel Remen on Speaking of Faith podcast. That led me to read her book Kitchen Table Wisdom. That led me to research her on line and find a workshop she was leading in California. That led me to sitting in a group of physicians and experiencing people (including myself) get reconnected with the deeper meaning of their work by sharing stories about their work. That led to me returning to work and inviting colleagues to form a Meaning in Medicine group which my wife and I hosted for about 8 years in our home. It was a transformative experience for my wife and me.
In Memory of Rachel Naomi Remen
Another death reported in the news —Naomi Rachel Remen died this week. Her book, Kitchen Table Wisdom, was my companion on an odd journey. It was my five week stay in Boston having radiation and chemotherapy. Perhaps I should have written to her when I came home and reached the final chapter in that book. It was as if she had traveled with me, comforted me as I found my way in a new place, stayed with me as I fell asleep in a strange bed, sat with me while I tried to eat at a small table looking out a window on a narrow city street. It was a book about healing; I read it at a time I was very sick. I thought of writing a thank you note to Rachel Remen. I didn’t. Now, I learn that she has died. I will find someone else to thank for their kindness. I will find someone else to thank for their insight. I will learn to offer my gratitude more quickly in the future and not hold back again.
SO sad for us, so happy for her. She has blessed humanity with the riches she acquired through an authentic and whole life lived completely…and in service of Truth. Oh, what a loss for us!
Mourning the loss of Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, with a heart full of sadness and deep gratitude. Through her inspired teaching and writing, she reminds us of the spiritual path of service that is medicine and healing. Immense thanks to her for helping us learn to deeply listen – to hear and understand; to make space for loss and grief; and to honour and connect with one another. Even as she is deeply missed, her wisdom will remain indelible in the hearts and minds of all those she touched.
I am so grateful for the life and work of Rachel Remen. I remember reading “Kitchen Table Wisdom” as a medical student back in the late 90’s- and the power of stories and human connection has never left. As a Family Physician who practices home visits and teaches home visit practice to medical students and resident physicians, we talk a lot about meaning in medicine, which is at the heart of Rachel’s “Healer’s Art” curriculum. We were lucky to have Rachel come to our Academic Institution to lead one of the first Healer’s Art faculty development sessions for residency faculty. It was incredibly powerful to work with Rachel on the sessions and be in her presence. Thank you, teacher.
Like so many, I first learned of Rachel Remen through picking up her books. I attended several of her trainings and started a Finding Meaning in Medicine group. I’ve used stories from her books in the courses I’ve taught to hundreds of medical students and patients (always with proper attribution, and encouragement to buy their own copies and read the entire books). In recent years, I’ve been blessed to be part of a monthly group Evange Andarsio and Rachel ran for faculty in the Healer’s Art. That group got me through leading our health system’s inpatient COVID response, followed by major disruptions from Hurricane Helene. Rachel is the model I aspire to follow, but certainly never equal. She remains a blessing that echoes forward in the lives of all she inspired, and the lives they touch in turn
I first learned of Rachel, her work and Kitchen Table Wisdom over 25 years ago, when I was at the Bayer Institute for Health Care Communication and teaching, conducting research and providing clinical care in the area of Behavioral Medicine. I loved Kitchen Table Wisdom and joined a Finding Meaning in Medicine Group in New Haven, CT, which was personally extremely meaningful and valuable. I felt connected to Rachel through her writings, especially her stories of her experiences supporting people with serious illness, as well as clinicians struggling to maintain their own health and wellbeing due to the forces that were shaping medicine.
I heard a recorded talk that Rachel gave – it may have an interview on a national network, and was deeply moved by her words, and even more so by her spirit and her compassion. I felt connected to her, even though i had never met. I decided that, one day, i was applying to become a Healer’s Art faculty member so I could lead the course for Brown University medical students. However,, for a variety of reasons, i put off my plan to attend the faculty development course for Healer’s Art.
When i had the opportunity to choose a speaker for a national meeting of diabetes educators, i wrote to Rachel to invite her to be a keynote speaker. She immediately accepted my invite and seemed thrilled by the opportunity to share her wisdom and sensibilities with this group of dedicated clinicians, who seek to empower patients to engage in self-care and live their ives to the fullest despite the limitations associated with having a serious chronic illness.
The talk was a huge success. The audience stood and clapped for many minutes, and many were visibly deeply moved by her talk. Afterwards, i had a chance to talk with Rachel to thank her for her talk. I told her that i had planned to become a Healer’s Art faculty member, but had to postpone it for personal reasons, though I mentioned that her talk has rekindled my strong desire to lead the course at Brown. She listened generously – despite the crowd of well wishers waiting to greet her…..looked deep into my eyes and simply said…..”Michael……you must come.” I immediately pledged that i would.
I year later traveled to Mill Valley with 2 other Brown faculty members to take the Healer’s Art Faculty Development Course. It was a fabulous experience to spend 3 days not only learning about the curriculum, but also experiencing, first hand, Rachel’s compassion, empathy, wisdom and spirit.
For the last 12 years, i have co-led or led Healer’s Art at Brown. It is the highlight of my year. I treasure the opportunity to support first and second year medical students maintain the core values that led them to choose medicine, and ensuring they have some tools and resources to help them to manage the rigors of training, and particularly the shadow curriculum in medical school, which emphasizes rote learning, an emphasis on performance, and also the competitive pressures that can dampen their sensibilities. As noted in the title of the Rachel’s course for Nursing students, it’s about keeping the flame alive, despite the barriers.
In addition to leading the Healer’s Art at Brown, I also utilize many of Rachel’s stories in my role at the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), where i lead training for VHA clinicians in Veteran-centered communication. Every time i tell a story (e.g., the cup of dirt given to her by her grandfather; the old man picking up starfish that had washed ashore), I choke up, as do many of the senior clinicians who are in the training that i lead.
Each year i teach Healer’s Art, i look forward to the very last exercise, where each participant, include me, shares an affirmation. Mine is a variation of, “I am a healer…..or I am compassionate.”
Rachel has helped me be the physician , the family member, the teacher and the community member I want to be. She has helped so many to nurture the spirit that is in each of us. Rachel has given us a precious opportunity to share her wisdom and spirit with others. For that, I am eternally gratefull. May her memory be a blessing to her family and to all who benefitted from her love and compassion.
Michael
I came across Rachel’s work as a young, new physician early in my practice. Many years later, I feel blessed to have been able to call her my mentor, to have worked with her to establish HART in my own home institution, and to continue to be able to carry the torch to 20+ years of students. She has been a light and inspiration to us all… and her spirit will no doubt live and echo forward through the lives of so very many that she has and will continue to touch.
Her wisdom and compassion touched me deeply. She is one of my greatest teachers.
May her memory be a blessing.
“Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts
Where no storm or night or pain can reach you.
You placed smiles like flowers
On the altar of the heart.
Your mind always sparkled
With wonder at things.
Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.
May you continue to inspire us;
To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love.”
John O’Donohue
I wish to offer my heartfelt condolences to Dr. Remen’s family, colleagues, students and friends who were blessed to know her personally. Dr. Remen taught and embodied compassion, love and care. Her legacy will continue, not just through her writings and recordings, but through the lives of all those she has touched.
I am a medical student at UCSD who took the Healer’s Art course during my first year of medical school. Although I have never personally or directly met Dr. Remen, I feel as though I know a piece of her as a member of the Healer’s Art community. I recently started my third year clerkships and wanted to share the impact this community and she had on me.
In my first rotation, I cared for a young cancer patient who was going to pass, likely soon. I cared for her for weeks, and on my final day on the rotation, she died. Truth be told, while caring for her, I did not see her as a “dying” individual, and when she passed, it finally hit me, and I began to feel her death. I was angry that she couldn’t go home to die as she wanted, grieved for her young children and family whom I had met and had been speaking to daily, and felt a sadness that this world had lost a courageous and kind individual. During our healer’s art class, we wrote a letter to our first patient who died, and I then had the opportunity to read this letter and reflect. In time, my feelings began to change to thankfulness and gratitude. Thankful that I was someone who got to know her, and importantly, got to be a part of her care in her final days. I am grateful for all that she taught me, in both medicine and patient care. I have had a few more patients pass since her, and I noticed that I began to see these deaths differently. There is always sadness and grief, but I have begun to see the privilege I hold to know these individuals and to have cared for them.
I share this story because it is the power of the Healer’s Art, the legacy that Dr. Remen left, that I attribute these reflections to. In this, I feel confident that as I progress through my medical career, I can continue to find thanks in death. I say this because I am thankful for Dr. Remen and all those whom she has inspired, who have now inspired me.
I am filled with gratitude to have known Dr. Rachel Remen. She inspired me – in person, during virtual gatherings, and through her writings – over many years. I cherish memories of being in her presence, captured by her quiet and earnest voice and her stories filled with humanity and compassion. She helped me feel and truly believe that I belong in the world of medicine, as a physician and a human being. Her teachings opened my heart, my mind, and my soul and those vital parts of so many people including patients, colleagues, students, friends, even strangers. Her life was like a precious and radiant stone, dropped in a beautiful lake, with ripples of goodness radiating out from her and from everyone she touched. May her memory be a blessing for us all.