Narrative Medicine: Community Poetry Heals Young and Old

Portuguese Narrative Poetry

The Poetry of Medicine

Outlining an educational initiative for those who work in the National Health Service (NHS), this article argues that literary reflection has been too easily seen as a simple tool which may improve the practitioner's empathic skills and benefit patient-centred care. Using anecdotal feedback, the author reports ways in which a series of literary workshops held for professionals in the NHS have a...

Inescapable Stories: The Infiltration of Narrative into Non-Narrative Poetry

Narrative permeates our lives, often without our noticing. We commonly recognise it in conventional arenas of storytelling, such as in the oral tradition, or in prose and film. There is also a long-held classification, narrative poetry within that particular literary art. I am exploring how narrative exists in more subtle expressions, especially within so-called lyric poetry. Can a supposedly n...

Narrative medicine and narrative writing.

Narrative and medicine.

A 36-year-old Dominican man with a chief symptom of back pain comes to see me for the first time. As his new internist, I tell him, I have to learn as much as I can about his health. Could he tell me whatever he thinks I should know about his situation? And then I do my best not to say a word, not to write in his chart, but to absorb all that he emits about his life and his health. I listen not...