The Physician as Storyteller

• Physician role
• Writing
• Knowledge, attitudes, practice
• Physician-patient relations

In recent years there has been a steadily growing interest in the narrative aspects of medical practice, as well as in doctors' writings about their work. Underlying this interest is the assumption that careful attention to the language and stories of medicine can enrich the doctor–patient relationship, improve patient care, and enhance doctors' sense of satisfaction with their work. The following article inspired—and now initiates—a series by physician-writers who reflect on the interrelationship between their literary and medical work. We hope that these essays will inspire some of our readers to write as a way of exploring their feelings about medical practice or simply for their own pleasure.

–The Editors

As physicians, most of us become involved in the stories of our patients' lives. Sometimes we are simply witnesses, chroniclers of the story in the medical chart. But often we become players in the stories. Our actions change the narrative trajectory, or else the patient's or the family's rendering of the story credits us with influencing the story. We may, as Arthur Frank suggests (1), become the “spokesperson” for the disease, and our patients' stories “come to depend heavily on repetition” of what we say. The following excerpt from Troyat's biography of Chekhov illustrates how a physician becomes player and catalyst in a story (2). Anton Chekhov, who was both writer and physician, died young of tuberculosis. In the last days of his life, Chekhov left his home in Russia and went to Germany, to a spa near the Black Forest. As his condition worsened, he sought the aid of the spa physician, Dr. Schwöhrer, who was given the difficult task of caring for a dying physician.

The windows were wide open, but he could not stop panting; his temples were bathed …