Montefiore Einstein Department of Medicine

Storytelling in Medicine

ricklee Julian internal medicine resident albert einstein college of medicine montefiore medical center bronx ny
Ricklie Julian, MD

Dr. Ricklie Julian, an upcoming third-year resident in Firm One of the Montefiore Einstein Internal Medicine Residency Program (Intensified Research Rotation), participated in a research study that developed and piloted an experiential narrative medicine curriculum for third-year medical students.

"Tell Me Your Story: A Pilot Narrative Medicine Curriculum During the Medicine Clerkship" was published in the July 2015 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Most educational interventions do not involve actual patient–provider interactions, nor do they assess narrative competence, according to authors of the study. The study involved storytelling activities in which third-year medicine clerkship students asked patients to describe their illnesses in storytelling form, listened attentively, wrote their own versions of the story, and read them back to patients. Students and patients both found the practice to be feasible, and students' stories showed that they had developed narrative competence.

"I enjoyed doing the patient interviews--many of them had powerful conversations with their medical students," said Dr. Julian. "It was a wonderful project to work on, and I was very happy to see it make it to publication."

The study was led by Dr. Katherine Chretrien, Chief of the Hospitalist Section and Clerkship Director at the Washington DC VA Medical Center and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

Posted June 28, 2015 

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