Ewing Halsell Distinguished Lecture

Hear “Storytelling in Medicine: The Passion and the Peril” by Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD.

Caring for patients is never easy. In addition to being swamped by medical intricacies, medical professionals often find that they are submerged in their patients' stories. This can be exhilarating or painful or both. But like patients, healthcare workers need stories. Why, after all, do so many of our medical journals publish stories in their otherwise statistically significant pages?  To be skilled clinicians, we must be able to interpret our patients' metaphors. If we insist on thinking concretely, we’ll miss out on the many layers of meaning…and maybe miss the diagnosis too.