Clinical Contributions of Narrative Medicine

This chapter summarizes the clinical practices that have been developed worldwide by those trained in narrative medicine. It describes innovations in interviewing techniques that improve the development of narratively fortified clinical relationships, including examples from clinical genetics and fetal cardiology. The chapter describes the increasing call for disciplined training in creative and reflective writing as a means to enrich and strengthen the clinical skills of individual practitioners. Interprofessional education and practice is a growing arena for the application of narrative medicine methods, as their collaborative nature helps to overcome divisive conflicts between specialized professions that can hamper effectiveness of care and threaten patient safety. Discoveries in clinical witnessing and clinical writing are presented, with descriptions of narrative medicine practices of including patients as readers and writers of the electronic medical record.