Medicine tells a story

Imagine your elders camped by a fire telling stories.

Indian Country holds stories dear. Stories keep cultures alive and warm.

Today medical practitioners welcome a new form of story-telling called narrative medicine.

Point is to enable patients to have their stories heard.

I was excited when I first learned about narrative medicine and I thought, here’s a break-through: doctors will actually listen to their patients.

My framework translates narrative medicine as an opportunity to learn about health through many means, not simply through the lens of a physician.

This week I received a notice about a workshop on narrative medicine.

I was excited to scan through the notice but then stopped cold. I couldn’t understand any of it.

The notice announces a workshop on “narrative advocacy” where folks will:

Read exemplar works which showcase both varied advocacy focus areas (patient care/ practice improvement, research dissemination, medical education, health policy) and diverse platforms (medical journals, the lay press, blogs, and health policy journals).

I have no idea what that means.

Here I sit, an active audience member, and I cannot discern what the hell the statement means.

A further enticement reads:

Next they will draft the beginnings of a narrative advocacy piece and, in a works-in-progress style workshop, receive peer and faculty feedback on their topic, approach, and possible publication sites for their pieces.

Seems dumb that I can’t understand the narrative about teaching about narrative.

Image from http://www.economist.com/node/14119801