Lab One: Narrative Medicine (Ten Weeks)
Learning Goal
Foster skills and professional self-improvement in the following three areas of communication.
1. Patient-Physician Narratives
WEEK ONE: Patient/caregiver role-playing to practice process skills
WEEK TWO: Motivational interviewing to help patients follow treatment plans
WEEK THREE: Video analysis of one’s verbal or body language with patients
WEEK FOUR: The role of language/narrative in giving meaning to illness and wellness
WEEK FIVE: CBT–the way patients speak about their past, giving shape to future hopes based on belief systems and/or emotional responses to treatment.
WEEK SIX: Culturally-specific attitudes surrounding illness and disability
2. Self-Narratives
WEEK SEVEN: Journaling, creative assignments and discussion with tenured physicians to share stories about coping with loss or malpractice
WEEK EIGHT: Dealing with the guilt, moral conflicts and self-doubt of medicine
3. Professional Peer Narratives
WEEK NINE: Group discussion and critique of peer role-playing
4. Civic Narratives (Learning to Advocate for Patients, Building Public Trust)
WEEK TEN: An Introduction to Lab Two. Presentations of video dossiers compiled in Weeks 1-9.
