With every new drug that gets approval, or every innovative technology that gets honed, we believe that we are inching closer to our dream –our goal of easing pain of those in anguish and sufferings. Medicine is checking back on itself and improving at a phenomenal pace; every day of every week sees new research and development around the world. But even then, a healthcare crisis brews the world over as caregivers get increasingly detached and distant to the very patients they are meant to serve –a crisis of communication, empathy, and disregard for untold stories.
Narrative Medicine is a new allied field that seeks to join up cutting edge clinical practice and the knack for stories. Patient stories shed light on their sufferings, anguish, pain and emotional upheavals. It tells about their expectations and their choices for treatment. Narrative medicine focuses on evoking the most telling aspects of patient stories and using them to appreciate and resonate with patients’ feeling to get a glimpse of his/her disease state, emotional wellbeing, and life. By learning, appreciating and conveying to peers and colleagues verbally and in writing, physicians and caregivers can seek treatment approaches that are more empathic and accurate.
Patient narrative has been the bedrock of classic medical practice. Every diagnosis emerges from patient’s recount of his/her sickness, sensations, feelings, and sufferings. Somehow as science progressed and differentials solidified, the importance of effective and empathic communication started fading on physicians and caregivers. Perhaps, it’s a compromise reached as more and more people start seeking medical help, or perhaps it’s that the art of listening lost its charm as we become dazzled by diagnostic and therapeutic technologies.
Narrative Medicine is being dubbed ‘just what the healthcare system needs now’. The reason –it aims to cover the most evident shortcomings of well-fed healthcare systems. If it’s not lack of funding, not shortage of resources, or not unavailability of critical technologies, it’s the lack of effective communication. 2009 saw University of Columbia launching its MS in Narrative Medicine, with extensive focus on its multidisciplinary approach and drawing heavily not just from medicine, but also from philosophy, literature and social sciences. New York Times featured it in ‘Innovative Career Paths’, though it’s still ambiguous what the Job Description would look like!
Of Stories Untold –Exploring the Emerging Field of Narrative Medicine
