gms | German Medical Science

15. Grazer Konferenz – Qualität der Lehre: Teaching and Learning – Expanding our Resources

28. - 30. April 2011, Wien, Österreich

A Course in Narrative Medicine at the University Paris Descartes: Main Features

Poster

  • corresponding author Michael Dennis Linder - Medical University of Graz, Research Unit of Behavioural Medicine, Health Psychology and Empirical Psychosomatics, Graz, Austria; University of Padua, Unit of Dermatology, Italy
  • author Eva-Maria Trapp - Medical University of Graz, Research Unit of Behavioural Medicine, Health Psychology and Empirical Psychosomatics, Graz, Austria
  • author Michael Trapp - Medical University of Graz, Research Unit of Behavioural Medicine, Health Psychology and Empirical Psychosomatics, Graz, Austria; Medical University of Graz, University Clinic of Medical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Graz, Austria
  • author Francois Goupy - Hôtel Dieu de Paris, Paris, France
  • author Nicolas Dantchev - Hôtel Dieu de Paris, Paris, France
  • author Patrick Triadou - Hôpital Necker Enfants Malades, Faculté de Médecine, Université Paris Descartes, France
  • author Claire Le Jeunne - Hôtel Dieu de Paris, Paris, France

15. Grazer Konferenz – Qualität der Lehre: Teaching and Learning – expanding our resources. Wien, Österreich, 28.-30.04.2011. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2012. Doc11grako28

doi: 10.3205/11grako28, urn:nbn:de:0183-11grako289

Published: April 25, 2012

© 2012 Linder et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.


Poster

During the second and third part of the medical curriculum at Paris Descartes University students are required to choose freely two courses per year among a set of about 20 different options. We report about such an optional course held during the summer term in 2010. The main aim of the course was to introduce students to the concept of narrative medicine [1] 1.

The course was held through six 3-hour sessions, each consisting of a whole class lesson and a practical exercise in small groups. The themes of the sessions were:

1.
Definition of the concept of Narrative Medicine
2.
Discussion of the Film “The Doctor”, USA 1991 by Randa Haines with William Hurt
3.
Narrative Theory and Autobiographical Writing
4.
Empathy and Patient-Physician Relationship
5.
Medical Humanities – Arts and Medicine
6.
Usefulness of Narrative Medicine – Presenting the Mc Gill Physicianship Program.

Besides providing information about the lecture content, in the poster we also report about the teachers, their competences, as well as about the profile of the students who chose to participate: the faculty was chosen among practising physicians in internal medicine, diabetology, pneumology, palliative care, dermatology and psychiatry. Also a famous French academic, Philippe Lejeune, mainly interested in autobiographical writing and diary keeping, contributed with a lecture dedicated to his field of speciality. The students who enrolled in the course were 26 females and 15 males, and the reason for them to participate was improving the doctor-physician relationship (6 F, 7M), general curiosity (8F 5M) other reasons (12F, 3M). It is interesting to remark that the sex ratio of the participants was not substantially different from the general sex ratio among students of the Paris Descartes Medical University: our experience does not support the commonly held belief of a gender bias as concerns the interest in medical humanities. This issue certainly warrants further research.


Note

1 The effective practice of medicine requires narrative competence, that is, the ability to acknowledge, absorb, interpret, and act on the stories and plights of others. Medicine practiced with narrative competence, called Narrative Medicine, is proposed as a model for humane and effective medical practice.


References

1.
Charon R. The patient-physician relationship. Narrative medicine: a model for empathy, reflection, profession, and trust. JAMA. 2001;286(15):1897-1902. DOI: 10.1001/jama.286.15.1897 External link