Medicine through the novel: Lying Awake

Abstract

Narrative fiction can engage readers in generating imaginative recreations of the inner worlds of doctors and patients, which are largely inaccessible through typical clinical case analysis. Fiction about medicine can yield insight into patients' subjective experience of illness and can highlight the need for an empathetic response from doctors to patients affected by illness. Mark Salzman's novel, Lying Awake, invites us to reflect on social, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of neurological illness in particular and of the doctor/patient relationship in general.