Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness
“When a patient tells a story, we as healthcare professionals must give equal importance to the task of listening and become part of the story.”
Columbia Global Centers | Istanbul had the rare and unique opportunity to host Rita Charon, MD; PhD; Professor and Chair, Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics, Professor of Medicine, and Executive Director of Narrative Medicine, at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons; narratologist; Jamesian; and author of “Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness” on October 1 for a closed workshop and public talk on Narrative Medicine.
Developed at Columbia University in 2000, Narrative Medicine is changing the landscape of medicine by fortifying clinical practice with the narrative competence to recognize, absorb, metabolize, interpret, and be moved by the stories of illness. It helps physicians, nurses, social workers, mental health professionals, social workers, academics, and all those interested in the intersection between narrative and medicine improve the effectiveness of care by developing these skills with patients and colleagues.
The October 1 events were organized on the heels of the success of a closed workshop the Center organized on February 21, led by Figen Biyik, MD, MSc in Narrative Medicine and graduate fellow at Columbia University and with Dr. Charon, who joined via video conference.
Dr. Charon led a closed 2-hour workshop and training for medical professionals practicing in Turkey with Figen Biyik, MD, MSc in Narrative Medicine and graduate fellow at Columbia University. She opened by talking about themes of how stories work, the importance of a medical professional’s ability to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved by stories of illness, and how narrative training enables practitioners to comprehend patients’ experiences and to understand what they themselves undergo as clinicians.
One key component of that training is to learn the narrative skills of close reading, attentive listening, and creative writing. As such, the 18 participants were led through an inquisitive and careful analysis of the first page of Orhan Pamuk’s novel, Snow. Participants were given the option to read the excerpt in Turkish. Then, they engaged in a discussion in English on the nuances of the text in painting a narrative that would set the stage for the rest of the narrator’s journey. The participants then wrote their own short stories on a “journey,” of which three shared with the group. This made for a lively discussion on each of the stories, and clues given and choice of vocabulary, were a key into the narrator’s intention and message. The session concluded with Dr. Charon underlining how this type of attention to a story can be directly applied to a clinician’s interaction with a patient and understanding his/her story and illness. She also noted that this session could only give a small taste to the vast field of Narrative Medicine, which is normally done through a full 2.5 day workshop.
The same evening, Dr. Charon gave a public talk to an audience of over 150 people at the Istanbul Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul University, who was also the event’s co-sponsor. Dr. Charon described the origins of the field of Narrative Medicine and its efforts to improve healthcare through rigorous and consequential training in close reading, creative writing, and the capacity to enter into the narrative worlds of the other. Deep and enduring consequences – for patients, for clinicians, and for institutions of health care – ensue from disciplined narrative training. The talk was followed by a Q&A discussion, moderated by Selma Karabey, MD, and Professor of Public Health at Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine. Thoughtful questions were asked by medical students like how to incorporate Narrative Medicine into one’s practice after graduation and working with physicians who don’t see value in it, how Narrative Medicine can prevent a doctor from getting burned out, and how to create patient-centered care.