Narrative Texts and Issues in Medical Humanities

Abstract

AbstractMedical Humanities began in the late 1970s as an attempt to supplement the emphasis on technology and science in medical education with renewed attention to the role of personal care. Today, more than 80% of all medical schools offer courses in Medical Humanities. Most of these courses emphasize fiction and nonfiction by physicians and patients that depict the experience of disease and care. This essay surveys foundational works in the field as well as relevant recent narratives of physicians, patients, caregivers, and families. The agenda of Medical Humanities is to explore how these interrelated and competing narratives can improve health care. Narrative is regarded as a necessary tool in medical practice, supplementing other components of evidence‐based medicine. The field has begun to be theorized by physicians who use narrative to describe how physicians and patients think and feel and how they reflect on their experience. Texts described in this essay address major issues in medicine, including multicultural medicine, access to care, death and dying, pain, empathy, medical mistakes, and physician impairment.