Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Never Too Early: Introducing Illness Scripts And Narrative Medicine As Foundational Clinical Approaches, Julia B. Frank, Seema Kakar, Gisela Butera, Thomas Harrod

Medicine Faculty Posters and Presentations

Educational Challenge: The foundations course of our reformed, organ-based curriculum introduces clinical interviewing when students know little clinical medicine. An exercise that introduces the complementary concepts of “illness scripts” and “narrative medicine” helps them structure early encounters with patients. It provides a framework for organizing future clinical knowledge while reinforcing the humanistic values that may deteriorate over the course of students’ education.

Method: Students conduct and write up a semi-structured interview of someone they know with chronic illness. They reflect on their experience in pairs, and then analyze sample encounters in small groups with faculty facilitation.

Outcome: Strongly favorable student …