Our Stories
Here’s what’s happening on in our corner of Narrative Medicine. What’s going on in yours? Drop us a line and let us know!
I am the emotion for this machine
Her eyes blink heavilybeneath a sloppy wigChest rising and fallingHeart beating hardas I touch my sister’s wrist She can’t reactwhen the nurses drag the breathing tubeacross her eye, let it sit tangled in her hair so I wince instead, ask them to be carefulremind them she is my sister I am showing the care they…
RX: A Poetic Act of Resistance and Resilience
What gives us olagaWhat gives us soifua maloloina The rationed insulin The hard pills to swallow Only heal the Physical Pain What prescription Can be written To heal the Trauma We have Survived Our hypertension Is a reflection Of the stress And salty diets forced upon us As our culture was stolen What could I prescribe…
“I can’t breathe.”
These are the devastating words uttered by George Floyd before he was murdered by a white police officer on May 25, 2020. Collectively, our communities and cities are breathing, shouting, and demanding justice for Mr. Floyd and countless other men, women, and children of color before him. At Northwest Narrative Medicine Collaborative, Black Lives Matter…
Interrupted
Life has been interrupted. I’ve taken on these interruptions, like all of us, wearing different hats. The doctor, mother, wife, daughter, sister, teacher, and friend hats transform my reactions based on the role I inhabit. My responses to the interruptions have been as varied as the roles. I imagine yours have to. There is fear,…
How We Began: Northwest Narrative Medicine Collaborative’s History
In 2014, April Brenneman googled “Portland Narrative Medicine” and found Elizabeth Lahti, the newly appointed director of narrative medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. April, the mother of a cancer survivor, told Elizabeth the story of how one day she pulled her son’s X-rays from the kitchen drawer and started painting over them, using…
Artists Sam Lavigne and Tega Brain have turned 200,000 GoFundMe comments into artwork.
"We're thinking about it as an archive of well wishes, but an archive that shouldn't exist, that exists because of a terrible structural inequality that we all face." https://trib.al/Ewa87Zr
Connections in Narrative Medicine
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MedHumChat
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Narrative Healthcare
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The Nocturnists
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