Explores fundamental questions about the experience of illness from the points of view of the patient, the physician, and the caretaker. Examines the ways in which these narratives have changed across centuries and across cultures. Asks about the physician’s role in determining treatment; whether storytelling leads to more ethical life and death decisions; what special insights patient narratives provide; and what new awareness physicians derive from narrating illness. Materials include essays, fiction, poetry, memoir, blogs, film and television. As a capstone project, students develop their own medical narratives that emerge in interaction with a mentor from the greater-Boston medical community.
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