The idea of “Narrative Medicine” was one that confused me when it was first introduced to us. It seemed as though the program was simply trying to make everything about medicine, whether it actually connected or not. What was narrative medicine? I had never heard of it and I was ready to have to take a class that made me pretend to see a “deeper meaning” in every piece that we read, even though I was sure that the analysis we were doing was extremely artificial. I never enjoyed literature classes that required me to pretend to “read between the lines,” and find lessons that I, truthfully, did not see at all. Narrative medicine, as it turned out, was not like some of the other literature classes I had taken.
On the first day of the composition section of FIQWS, we were told to write a “Where I’m From” poem in which we took a step back and tried to write down some of the big and small things that made us who we were as individuals. Having done biography assignments in the past, it was interesting having to form the writing in a way in which each line began with “I’m from…” Having to define my different characteristics and origins through images and ideas, as big as my race, and as small as the type of food I eat, made it interesting to see all the different things that made up me, Sehrish Ali, as a person outside of a student. From that day, I knew the class was going to be different from what I was expecting. I think what made me so comfortable in this class was watching that first TED Talk, “Don’t Ask Where I’m From, Ask Where I’m a Local,” by Taiye Selasi. Being in a room made up of such a diverse class, representing all colors, races, religions, genders, etc, I think that TED talk made us all feel more comfortable sharing extremely personal stories in the class. The establishment of the class as a safe space, where both Professor Ryder and my fellow classmates were present as support, was extremely important to me in the remainder of the semester, as the assignments required a lot of trust in my classmates and professor, being as personal as they were.
One thing that I was surely able to learn throughout this course was how to be confident in my writing. The piece that I put the most amount of effort into was definitely the outsider narrative, simply because it was the most personal, and thus made me want to invest more time into it. That was also the first time that we did peer editing and to say that I was nervous was an understatement. I have always been shy when it comes to sharing my writing, simply because writing is how I express some of my deepest, most personal thoughts, and letting someone read it allows them to see into my thoughts. Being that I had only met the kids in the class about two weeks prior to peer editing, it made me extremely nervous to allow them to read a piece of my writing that expressed my most vulnerable moment. What I learned thought that assignment however, was that everyone had the same nervous thoughts about peer editing. I was also reading into their thoughts, and they were also afraid that I would judge them based on an en experience which was prominent enough in their life to make them remember it as a time in which they felt that they did not belong. Throughout the course, as we began to learn more about each other as classmates and became closer friends, I found peer editing to be less daunting. I stopped introducing my writing with, “It’s really bad, I know,” and instead was comfortable enough to ask specific questions that I wanted my peers to help me out with, whether that was the thesis statement, the structure, or the tense that I used. A large part of the reason why I was able to give and receive better advice during peer editing was because I think we all were able to trust each other more each time. There were definitely insecurities for some of us in terms of being afraid that our writing would be judged by someone that is a much better wrtier than us. Through reading multiple papers, having done peer editing for years, and having worked with a publishing company for a short time, I have established that I am comfortable with my style of writing.
Are some people better writers than others? Of course. What I learned though, is that being insecure and not wanting to share my writing in fear of being judged will never help me improve my writing, but will instead hold me back from learning from my peers and getting to a place in my writing where I am comfortable with others reading it, and confident enough to put my name on it and own it.
The class, in all, was extremely effective in touching upon a variety of genres and rhetorical situations. It began with a personal paper that explored narratives in terms of our own experiences and vulnerabilities. I think in terms of the composition part of the class, this paper being the first that we wrote established a sense of trust and a safe space within the class. In terms of the Topic section, this paper allowed us to set a foundation for all of the different narratives of others that we were going to read, Throughout the semester, we read the narratives of people who were seen as “others,” whether it be due to their illness, their race, their gender, their disability, or anything else. Having began the semester with establishing a moment in which each of us felt like an outsider, it was easier to understand the point of views of others that may have had a similar experience, and be able to be an active audience by relating the experience back to ourselves or simply by being able to understand the author’s situation. After the personal paper, we wrote others of different genres, including a research paper, and an analytical paper which made us analyze metaphors and their effect on language and the message that comes across simply through the words used to portray it. Having written a variety of genres, with a variety of purposes, we were able to more effectively analyze the narratives of the authors whose voices we were reading. For my outsider narrative, for example, I wrote about feeling like an outsider when my religion was used to single me out and make me feel alone and alien in a city where I was born and raised. In my metaphor paper, however, I was able to analyze how war metaphors, while trying to make a patient feel comfortable, can make them feel alone in their experience of illness. While being completely different in the approach that I took in the different papers, they were somehow both related.
The two papers, as well as the other writing we did, and the passages that we read, connected back to the theme that seemed to run through the course of empathy and social responsibility. For example, for my final paper, I researched the taboo against the word ‘breast,” in Pakistan and the implications that language has on the treatment and perception of the illness in different countries, even though it is the same illness biologically. Digging deeper and understanding the implications of something that seems as unimportant as a billboard, helped me understand the social pressure that can be created by simple words and images on people that are experiencing something as grave as breast cancer. The course genuinely made me step back and take a closer look at things such as billboards, language, images, metaphors, and other small things that we often look past, and understand the implications of these things on society and our role, as future physicians to understand these injustices and our responsibilities in society.
Whether we were discussing our own discomfort within a certain situation or the social injustice experienced by a particular group or person shown through their narrative, we were able to understand the social implications of these issues.
To end, I think one of the most important things I learned in this course was how to say singular attention to someone and their story. One thing that has stuck with me from the class is that once we listen to or read someone’s story, we partially own it. We, as listeners, become an active part of their story, and in order to allow them to own their story, and be able to accurately express it, it is our job to be active listeners and not take away from someone’s experience. The activity we did in class once was speaking to someone we do not usually share personal experiences with, and taking turns telling them something personal that has been on our minds lately. When we weren’t talking, the objective was to listen quietly, and let the storyteller experience and own their words. That activity allowed me to be an active participant in both sections of the class, whether it be peer editing a classmate’s paper, or analyzing a topic text in a discussion post because it made me realize how much of a difference the audience can have on a storyteller’s experience of something. It taught me to be empathic, to be an active listener, to let someone tell their story and not take away from it. Narrative Medicine, as a whole, taught me that medicine is not about the biology and the chemicals that make up a human being. It is not strictly about diagnoses, treatment, medicine, etc. Medicine is about realizing the stronger, overlapping social circumstances that contribute to illness, acknowledging another’s story and being an active participant in listening to and understanding their experience. Medicine is about having empathy, understanding, and knowledge of the world around us, in order to be effective citizens of the world, and even better physicians.
