“Health care and the illness experience are marked by uneasy and costly divides: between those in need who can access care and those who cannot, between health care professionals and patients, and between and among health care professionals themselves. Narrative medicine is an interdisciplinary field that challenges those divisions and seeks to bridge those divides. It addresses the need of patients and caregivers to voice their experience, to be heard and to be valued, and it acknowledges the power of narrative to change the way care is given and received.” Columbia University Narrative Medicine Program
Dr Rita Charon, author of Narrative Medicine: Stories of Illness (2008), is the founding mother of Narrative Medicine and Professor of Clinical Medicine and Director of the Program in Narrative Medicine at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York.
Praise for her book:
“It is a compelling mix, backed by the unusual authority of a physician who is also a literary scholar. ... Narrative Medicine is practical enough to be beneficial to the clinician, yet sufficiently theoretical to serve as a seminal text in the field. Even master clinicians can gain from the knowledge and skills presented here. Charon has written an inspired and inspiring book; and, in her stories of patients and students, she is a role model for us all.” (The Lancet, Vol 370)
Listen to Dr Rita Charon’s Ted Talk here: