Narrative based medicine: Narrative based medicine in an evidence based world

1999/01/30 by Trisha Greenhalgh · 1 voice · 6 citations
Medicine · Health Professions · #Empathy and Medical Education #Clinical Reasoning and Diagnostic Skills #Film in Education and Therapy

paper · doi:10.1136/bmj.318.7179.323

openalex publication_date 1999/01/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

Summary points: Even "evidence based" clinicians uphold the importance of clinical expertise and judgment. Clinical method is an interpretive act which draws on narrative skills to integrate the overlapping stories told by patients, clinicians, and test results. The art of selecting the most appropriate medical maxim for a particular clinical decision is acquired largely through the accumulation of "case expertise" (the stories or "illness scripts" of patients and clinical anecdotes).The dissonance we experience when trying to apply research findings to the clinical encounter often occurs when we abandon the narrative interpretive paradigm and try to get by on "evidence" alone.

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Discussions

• Greenhalgh T. (1999). Narrative based medicine: narrative based medicine in an evidence based world. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 318(7179), 323–325. doi.org/10.1136/bmj.... [bsky, 0 points, 1 comments]