Instructor Spotlight: Ellie Pantekidis and Layla Shaffer
What is narrative medicine?
Narrative Medicine is an emerging interdisciplinary field devoted to honoring the role of the story in medicine. It’s centered at the intersection of humanities, clinical practice, and healthcare justice, urging providers to examine their own experiences and biases as they develop critical self-awareness and narrative competence to understand patients’ stories more effectively. Only by valuing and enshrining patients’ stories as their own unique experiences can healthcare providers begin to listen actively to patients, engage with their emotions, and collaborate with them in decision-making processes to offer better care.
What inspired you to teach this course?
Layla: As an EMT, I spend a lot of time administering care in stressful situations and helping patients who are often in vulnerable states. In doing so, it’s become increasingly clear to me that there needs to be a greater focus on patient-centered care in the discussions we’re having regarding medical treatment. Two summers ago I applied and had the opportunity to work one-on-one with one of the founders of the Narrative Medicine field: Professor Maura Spiegel at Columbia. This experience not only showed me the nuanced facets of the field but also gave me the tools to go on to teach my own course on the subject.
Ellie: I was first introduced to Narrative Medicine while taking “Health and Illness in Spanish Literature” with Professor Amy Millay, a course which highlighted the relationship between healthcare and the humanities. Through our close reading, journaling, and class discussions, I came to appreciate how storytelling and narrative competence informs clinical care. Inspired by Professor Millay’s course and recognizing Narrative Medicine’s potential to fill a major gap in the healthcare space, I implemented the principles of Narrative Medicine into my work as an EMT. Focusing on not only my patients’ symptoms but also their stories, values, cultural beliefs, and family histories greatly enhanced my connection to patients and fostered a deeper sense of trust.
Why is it important to humanize health and healthcare?
Engaging with the healthcare landscape, whether as a patient or as a doctor, is a deeply personal, unique, and emotional experience. It is paramount to consider the ways in which medical care touches each individual. How can the doctor, who might be struggling with their identity in a power-driven hierarchy, make connections with a patient who might have trouble giving voice to their illness? How might a family member and patient reconcile and grapple with news of a terminal diagnosis? How might a parent go about navigating the realm of genetic testing and inherited diseases? Giving voice to stories, studying illness and provider narratives, and listening to the various perspectives in healthcare doesn’t just emotionally shape an individual’s experience, but also has the power to improve treatment outcomes. A patient who is able to develop a relationship of trust with a provider is more likely to be medically compliant with treatments. Doctors, through the exercise of close reading and practice of narrative techniques, can better parse a patient’s story, clueing into key details that could lead to better care. Medicine is not just told through charts and diagnoses but also through stories, silence, body language, shared compassion, and empathy.
Ellie Pantekidis is a senior majoring in Biology, Biotechnology, and Spanish Cultural Studies. She is a part of TEMS and the Leonard Carmichael Society.
Layla Shaffer is a senior majoring in Biomedical Engineering and English. She is a member of the Tufts Club Ice Hockey team, TEMS, and Tufts Marathon Team.