Main description:

Throughout our lives, story is the medium each of us uses to make sense of our environment and relationships. Stories provide meaning and context, enriching our experiences and equipping us with a framework to navigate our existence.

This unique, practical book for healthcare trainees, practitioners and educators explores the ideas and practice of narrative and storytelling that lie at the very heart of clinical medicine and the patient 'experience' of care. It shows how story and narrative can be used effectively to help convey concepts such as prognosis and the effect of illness upon life, and to prepare patients and their relatives for difficult and painful news.

Offering a particular insight into communication by and between healthcare professionals, and how it can be refocused and improved, this updated and expanded second edition remains an invaluable teaching aid for educators working in both small and large formats, and for under- and postgraduate students.

Contents:

To begin at the beginning
The power of narrative and story
Stories in the consultation
The patient's story, the doctor's story
Children and story
Story as performance
A student's story
Stories in medical education and training
A hospital's story
A paramedic's story
You should write
The end of the story?

Index