Narrative Medicine, University of Pittsburgh

As physicians, we have the privilege of hearing many different stories from our patients, ranging from the everyday to some of the most significant experiences of people’s lives. Sometimes, we are able to intervene in these stories, but more often than not, our role is to bear witness to them. Narrative medicine provides us with a new framework for understanding patients’ experiences as well as our own experiences as health care providers. It teaches doctors to listen to patient’s stories, to translate them into written or oral forms, and in doing so, to establish personal connections to these patients. This course will allow medical students to practice the skills of narrative medicine while interacting with patients. They will first be introduced to historytaking skills from the perspective of a journalistic, rather than a medical, interview. In the following sessions, they will meet with patients and have the opportunity to practice these interviewing skills. Students will then select an advocacy topic drawn from their interviews and compose an Op-Ed piece that connects their patient’s story to a broader issue. The goal of this course is for the practice and appreciation for storytelling to be integrated into students’ history-taking skills as they progress in their medical education. 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.