Narrative Medicine, Tulane University

What does it mean to experience illness? What emotions are felt when a student meets their first patient in anatomy lab, silently waiting and seemingly voiceless? Narrative medicine is an interdisciplinary field that explores these questions and challenges disparities in health care by allowing participants (students, patients, providers) to give voice to their experiences, be heard, and valued. The field is steadily growing, featuring the works of such doctor-authors as Atul Gawande, MD, Danielle Ofri, MD, and Paul Kalanithi, MD. This course serves as a primer, giving foundational tools and a space for students to engage with narrative medicine and more fully own their academic and clinical experiences. Elective only. This information has been collected for the Post-Discipline Online Syllabus Database. The database explores the use of literature by schools of professional education in North America. It forms part of a larger project titled Post-Discipline: Literature, Professionalism, and the Crisis of the Humanities, led by Dr Merve Emre with the assistance of Dr Hayley G. Toth. You can find more information about the project at https://postdiscipline.english.ox.ac.uk/. Data was collected and accurate in 2021/22.