Narrative Medicine in Clinical Practice, University of Tennessee Health Science Center

What I really want for you during this rotation is not that you become a poet or a great writer, (that's OK, too) but for you to appreciate the breathtaking blend of biology and biography that is the essence of medicine; “the ability to acknowledge, absorb, interpret and act on the stories and plights of others.”1 Imagine you lived during Sir William Osler's time, without CBCs, complete metabolic profiles or CT scans available within minutes of your asking. Pretend that your diagnosis depends on what you hear, touch, smell and how you integrate that with context, viewpoint, voice, narration. Listen for the narrative dilemma, often disguised as an ache or pain. Read, write and reflect on these things. Then exploit all the neat labs and images to confirm your suspicions and translate it back to a language the patient understands. If it's not fun, one of us is doing something wrong. Professor of Medicine Room in Preston Medical Library, has been reserved for your use from 1-4 every afternoon. Feel free to use it to read, study, quietly with the door closed. Schedule: activities are outlined on the weekly calendar below: a. You are expected to attend all required internal medicine conferences. b. For the month of January, I’ll have hematology clinic 9-4 Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. You will accompany me to those clinics. I’ll expect you to write one paragraph about something that touched, inspired or surprised you during each of those days. c. Monday and Friday morning, we’ll meet to discuss and write about an assigned reading. The reading will vary with what we’ve seen that week. d. One afternoon per week, you’ll meet with DD, Poet in Residence in the Preston Medical Library. Her email is ___. Contact her as soon as possible to discuss her plans for you. e. Medical Ethics: meet with Dr. AM for at least one session during the block f. One day making home visits with UT Hospice Medical Director, Dr. GP g. There will be a clinical project (attached) in which I’ll ask you to take a clinical concept and translate it into a narrative delivery so that a layperson can understand what you’re trying to convince them. Use as a reference "Integrating Narrative Medicine and Evidence Based Medicine" which is in the Preston Medical Library. Suggestions to make this a meaningful rotation a. Be prepared to identify in each patient we see together on rounds: i. The critical clinical point, ii. The narrative dilemma, iii. What the illness means AS WELL AS what the disease is. b. Writing: keep a journal (not a diary)2: i. Each evening write about something that that touched, surprised or inspired you, ii. When a topic takes root, and if you are inclined, let us help you prepare it for submission to a medical journal as a reflective piece. c. Look for poems or prose that you enjoy and bring them to me so we can share them. 1. Charon R. Narrative medicine: A model for empathy, reflection, profession, and trust. J. Am. Med. Assoc. 2001;286(15):1897–1902. 2. Remens N. My Grandfather’s Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging.; 2002:116–119. According to teaching faculty, this clinical elective has proved popular among medical students, who succeed in connecting their reading and writing assignments to particular patients or situations that they face during their residencies. 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.