Narrative Medicine and Pulse
Narrative medicine is a healthcare practice that emphasizes listening to and exploring patient stories using the craft of storytelling in order to better understand a patient’s life and perspectives, promote a collaborative relationship with clinicians and foster individualized, effective and compassionate care.
Pulse is a premier resource for students and practitioners of narrative medicine. It’s a safe space where patients and clinicians, students and caregivers, health professionals and family members gather as equals–sharing their personal experiences and perspectives.
A safe space for honest sharing requires mutual respect and a suspension of judgment. It also helps to eliminate a medical hierarchy that can block honest communication by intimidating patients and by making physicians reluctant to share their human vulnerabilities.
Narrative medicine aims to humanize medicine–a goal that has to contend with productivity demands, electronic screens in the exam room and a medical ethos that often values a laboratory’s cold numbers above human empathy.
Pulse reminds health professionals why they entered the business of health care. It reminds patients that their medical providers are as human as themselves. And it reminds us all of the value of honest dialogue and human connection in alleviating suffering and promoting healing.
If you subscribe to Pulse, you’ll receive a fresh perspective every week. Here’s a sampling from our archives:
On the Bottom Rung: A medical student finds herself in the deep end
Family Summons: A resident gets a 2 a.m. wake-up call
The End of Nice: An attending physician recalls what happened to her compassion
Soon: A nurse finds that doing her best is not enough
A Day in the Life of a Psychiatrically Hospitalized Clinician: A social worker shares her story