Narrative medicine

Abstract

A scientifically competent medicine alone is insufficient to help patients cope with loss of health, find meaning in suffering and endow the physician with the ability to establish a sufficiently compassionate and empathetic physician-patient relation. Interest in these aspects is typical of clinical care models focused on the patient (and not on diseases), which also implies recognizing that patients bring their own stories with information about their experience of the disease. Narrative, a linguistic form with defined characteristics used in medicine, helps to create a bridge between modern biomedicine and the experience lived by the patient. Narrative medicine includes aspects of the biopsychosocial model and patient-centered care. It favors the development of skills to take advantage of narratives in the diagnostic, therapeutic, patient education, professional and research processes. Likewise, it has positive impacts on health professionals by promoting reflection and self-awareness and is complementary to evidence-based medicine. In this article we try to introduce narrative medicine as a tool for the improvement of medical care.