Lewis & Clark College students may apply to enroll in a 1-credit directed study on narrative medicine, offered through our Rhetoric & Media Studies Department (RHMS) and our Center for Community and Global Health. 

Telling our stories is a powerful way of making sense of illness, trauma, and disability to facilitate healing and social change. Narrative medicine is a way of practicing health care that incorporates narrative competence: the ability to attend to stories, absorb them cognitively and emotionally, and incorporate that into care. The practice of narrative medicine improves quality of care and life for patients, health care providers, and caregivers.  It also addresses some of the limitations of our contemporary health care systems.  You can read more about it in this profile of narrative medicine founder, Rita Charon.

This directed study will introduce you to narrative medicine and train you as a narrative medicine scribe. 

  • The centerpiece of the experience will be a two-day online training in narrative medicine scribing, to be held over the break from classes on February 25-26.
  • Leading up to the training (from January 20 through February 24) we will meet as a class on Wednesdays from 5:15 to 6:15. Readings and asynchronous discussions will be assigned for Mondays and Fridays during this period.
  • Small group meetings and individual tutorials will take place between February 26 and March 17 as you use your training to engage in a final narrative scribe project. The course will conclude with project presentations at our final meeting on the evening of March 17 (time TBA depending on the number of participants).
  • Throughout January, February, and March, as a part of LC’s Healing Social Suffering through Narrative program, students will participate in workshops and panel discussions offered by our community partner, the Northwest Narrative Medicine Collaborative.

Students may receive credit through RHMS 299 or through a soon-to-be-announced practicum course through the new Community and Global Health program. 

Enrollment is limited. Please contact me (daena@lclark.edu) for information about this opportunity and to obtain a link to the application.