Learning to Put the “Care” in Healthcare

I currently attend Lewis & Clark College, where I am a health studies minor. I was taking Public Health this year and we had to attend “Narrative Scribe Training- Signal and Noise: Scribing in the Margins”. What started out as an unknown became an experience that continues to shape my daily interactions. 

In Narrative Scribe Training we learned about the use of narrative scribing in medicine, but also discussed a lot of techniques for communicating empathy and listening respectfully. Practicing these in large and small group activities also really helped me to understand how and when to best sit back and listen or effectively communicate the empathy of another person. I find that I use some of these skills in my day-to-day life. 

Narrative Scribe training educated me on the medical systems within our country. We saw personal accounts of how medical professionals attended to patients much differently based on things like race or socioeconomic status. Although we tend to hear about the divide in healthcare for these marginalized groups, this was one of the first times I've seen a personal account of it. Hearing and seeing the emotion behind someone's experience truly deepens your understanding of these issues. 

The narrative scribe training forced me to reevaluate my communication in a lot of ways, and confront parts of the system we’ve grown accustomed to that do not benefit others. I really do feel like the training educated me both academically and personally. For me, these events changed my life.

To see Lewis & Clark College's article, click the link below!

Bringing Empathy to Health Care Through Narrative Scribe Training