The doctor Annalisa Silvestri during covid-19 pandemic 2020 in Italy. By Alberto Giuliani. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

By Lauren Hodges

Storytelling isn’t just for the literary enthusiast but can benefit people in various careers. In a recent article in MedPage Today, Narrative Medicine Writing Saved My Sanity, Dr. Arthur Lazarus writes about his experience with narrative medicine and how it impacted his career.

It is no secret that during the COVID-19 pandemic healthcare workers were busier than ever, and it began taking a toll on their mental health. Dr. Lazarus felt the pressures of the pandemic and turned to writing as a way to reflect on the medicine and care he was providing. This introduced him to the field of narrative medicine.

According to Columbia University, “narrative medicine is an international discipline at the intersection of humanities, the arts, clinical practice, and health care justice with conceptual foundations in narratology, phenomenology, and liberatory social theory.” Dr. Rita Charon is credited as the founder of narrative medicine and says, “the effective practice of medicine requires narrative competence, that is, the ability to acknowledge, absorb, interpret, and act on the stories and plights of others."

Woman writing on a notebook with a pen. By Kristin Hardwick. Licensed by CC0 1.0.

The field is relatively new, beginning around 2001, but is becoming more popular as doctors and nurses face longer hours, a lack of staff, and more uncertainty (as we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic). In fact, narrative medicine writing programs are being introduced to medical schools.

Dr. Lazarus enrolled in a narrative healthcare certificate program in which students read narratives by trained practitioners and study illness narratives in various kinds of literature. Dr. Lazarus met a cardiothoracic surgeon who decided to enroll in the Master’s program and was adamant about using storytelling to “prevent burnout and to focus on the deeper meaning of what [doctors] do and how [they] can enhance care for [their] patients.”

It’s easy to imagine how working in healthcare can result in numbing to death and create a feeling of inefficacy after witnessing so many casualties. By employing storytelling techniques, healthcare workers can find a deeper connection to the gravity of the losses they’ve experienced, but can also reflect on the profound impact they’ve had on individual lives and their community’s overall health. Additionally, these narratives can be shared with people outside of the healthcare system to provide a glimpse into their world creating empathy for the workers and people suffering from illnesses and injuries.

Narrative medicine may be the ticket to ensuring our healthcare workers protect their mental health and increase their capacity to care for patients in such an emotionally taxing profession.