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credits

Average Course Rating

As Hippocrates said, It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has. People relate their health issues to others through personal narratives and stories. These stories are the common language of medicine. The experience of human health, suffering, and death as told in these stories are used by people to convey their observations and emotions to others. This course will explore narratives and storytelling in medicine in many forms including patient narratives, fiction written by physicians, medical case reports, and oral traditions as well as themes discovery, mystery, adventure, confession, joy, grief, and loss. Students will also work outside the classroom, gathering a range of experiences from traditional medical rounds and case presentations to media and visual representations such as art and film.