In the name of efficiency, it is easy to block out patients' stories and deal only with the “facts,”
to see the chat, the time, and the stories as luxuries for when there is a cancellation. The …

Dr Rob Wedel and Dr Ruth E. Martin conceived the Heartbeat Project, a plan to collect and
publish a book of stories that had, as they put it at the time,“awed, encouraged, moved …

Throughout our lives, story is the medium each of us uses to make sense of our environment
and relationships. Stories provide meaning and context, enriching our experiences and …

Our lives are made up of stories. Stories have a direction and draw the reader into the
mystery of what will happen next. Some of our earliest memories are of stories told to us at …

Methods At Columbia University in New York, NY, we provide narrative training (ie, rigorous
training in close reading, attentive listening, reflective writing, and bearing witness to …

We listen to stories from our patients, privileged to the intimate details of others' lives.
Unfortunately, many of us allow little time or leeway for expression and convert the rich …

PHYSICIANS ARE IMMERSED IN STORIES. THEY HEAR STO-ries from patients, tell them
to other physicians, and recall them in quiet moments. 1 Literary scholars, folklorists, and …

Sick persons and those who care for them become obligatory story-tellers and story-
listeners. Hippocrates knew this, Chekhov knew this, Freud knew this, and yet knowledge of …

Physician anecdotes about their patients have always been a part of medical education and
clinical practice. In the post-Flexnerian era, with the introduction of increasingly …

Seeks to restore the pivotal role of the patient's own story in the healing process• Shows how
conventional medicine tends to ignore the account of the patient• Presents case histories …