Literary narrative in medical practice
- 1Department of Bioethics and Medical Humanities and Department of Philosophy, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile
- 2Faculty of Medicine, Institute for the History of Medicine, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- Correspondence to: Dr M Kottow, Casilla 16168 Correo 9, Santiago, Chile; guarvie{at}ctcreuna.cl
- Accepted 10 January 2002
- Revised 23 November 2001
Abstract
It is generally accepted that the practice of medicine could be improved by turning to the humanities in general, and to narrative and text interpretation in particular. Neverthless, there is hardly any agreement as to the nature of the clinical text, whether it be the patient's narrative that needs to be richly understood, or the patient as patient who must be both personally and clinically deciphered.
We suggest that literary narratives depicting medical situations might serve as testimonials of the way medicine has or is being practised in a variety of social settings, and of the ways patients experience disease and medical care. By reading these texts, health care professionals could compare the situations and values involved in such narratives with current medical practices, thus perceiving how clinical encounters have changed and improved or, perhaps, continue to carry a burden of past flaws.
