Humanities and Its Impact on Medical Students

Greeting Stewards,

Happy June! We hope are enjoying the warmer weather and sunshine!

Today’s blog post explores how writing and healthcare can go hand in hand, and how narrative medicine plays a huge role in transforming our healthcare system.

The article, “I Went to Medical School and Came Out a Writer” written by Xi Chen, is a prime example of how storytelling and medicine do indeed go hand in hand. Chen speaks about how reading the non-fiction book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, by Oliver Sacks, opened his eyes to real human stories. Through Sacks, Chen was able to view patients and the medical field through a humanitarian lens. Chen wanted to learn about patients and their stories, and through Sacks he started his own series of medical essays.

Chen also talks about the pressures of being an Asian American while in medical school. He felt the negative drawbacks of loving literature and wanting to connect with patients, saying: “Loving literature didn’t translate into being good at speaking with patients, and when I tried to convey their stories to supervisors on morning rounds, I was scolded for lingering in my patients’ social backgrounds.”

However, Chen found that leaving medical school for a bit to study writing was a good choice. He writes, “Practitioners of narrative medicine are more equipped, as its founder Dr. Rita Charon put it, ‘to listen to their patients, to understand as best they can the ordeals of illness, to honor the meanings of their patients’ narratives of illness, and to be moved by what they behold so that they can act on their patients’ behalf.’” He plans to return to medical school after studying writing. He understands how vital writing is, and why Sacks’s book is so important. It reflects the suffering and joy that providers get to experience during direct patient care.

As an Asian American myself, this piece of writing really resonated with me. The pressure of perfectionism weighs heavily on many children of color to go into mostly STEM related careers. But Chen makes a good point on how writing and literature helped change his reasons for going into medicine. He stresses how understanding humanities and the human experience will shape the future of our healthcare system.

I hope that you will find the article as valuable as I did! And to note, we are still accepting participants for our 2022 Series Forum, “Uncertain Together.” More information can be found on our Forum page on our website!

Warmly,

Asheanna