The New York Times article “When Patients Share their Stories, Health May Improve” shares a summary of information that has already been presented in this blog. As stated in the article, “…Stories are an essential part of who we communicate, interpret experiences and incorporate new information into our lives.” It then goes on to cite a study reported in The Annals of Internal Medicine suggesting storytelling helps patients with high blood pressure. The article succinctly presents the information as, “…It appears that at least for one group of patients, listening to personal narratives helped control high blood pressure as effectively as the addition of more medication.” The article goes on to suggest that storytelling can be most helpful in “silent” diseases - in other words, diseases that have few symptoms that are not externally obvious or immediate, such as diabetes or high blood pressure. Due to the lack of external symptoms, these conditions are easy to ignore even after diagnosis, yet, as in the article, “Stories help break down that denial by engaging the listener.”
My response to this article is brief - I like it. It is a summary of what is starting to happen in storytelling medical research. It also recognizes what has hampered storytelling research for many years, the lack of quantifiable evidence. As noted in the article, “A vast majority of studies (about storytelling) have been anecdotal, offering up neither data nor statistics but rather…stories to back up the authors’ claims.” This piece then goes on to cite the high blood pressure study in African American patients, a study mentioned in a previous article review, and recognize how quantifiable data is becoming available to support the medical benefits of storytelling.
The aspect of this article that most excites me is the fact it was in the New York Times. This demonstrates that the idea of storytelling in medicine is becoming more accepted by popular culture and publicly recognized by the medical community. Granted, as far as I can tell, it has not received mainstream recognition, but something is happening. My hope is that this blog will continue to flourish, and help, in some small way, to further the this recognition and acceptance of medical storytelling.
Please share your thoughts below.
Article: Paulina W. Chen, M.D., “When Patients Share Their Stories, Health May Improve”. Published February 10th, 2011 in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10//health/views/10chen.html Accessed February 5th, 2016.
No comments:
Post a Comment