Online Discussion: Narrative Medicine

Fordham’s Alliance for Better Health would like to invite you to an online conversation on Thursday, May 8 with Dr. Rita Charon, who originated the field of narrative medicine. She is the Bernard Schoenberg Professor of Social Medicine and Professor of Medicine and the founding chair of the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics at Columbia’s medical school.

We will engage in a conversation with her on the challenges in the field and explore our interests in moving the field forward. Narrative medicine is an approach to healthcare that emphasizes the importance of patients’ stories in clinical practice, research, and education. It focuses on developing the ability of healthcare professionals to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved by the stories of illness.

Narrative medicine is increasingly recognized as a legitimate and valuable discipline within the practice of medicine—especially in medical education, primary care, palliative care, and psychiatry. For more information please see Dr. Charon’s award-winning books on Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness (Oxford UP, 2006) and co-author of Principles and Practices of Narrative Medicine (Oxford UP, 2017).