The subtitle
of this collection explicitly states its purpose and implies its audience. The
content includes essays on teaching, as well as a number of canonical stories
taught in medical humanities courses. The first section consists of key texts
that present a rationale for teaching narrative literature to medical and other
health professions students. This is followed by five sections, each of which
covers an aspect of that rationale, i.e. narrative exploration of professional boundaries, empathy and respect,
authority and duty, stigma, and truth-telling and communication.
Within each
section, several essays describe teaching considerations or techniques, often
focusing on a specific story or novel. For example, in “A Novel Approach to
Narrative Based Professionalism: The Literature Classroom in Medical Education”
by Pamela Schaff and Erika Wright (p. 72), the authors describe how Pat
Barker’s novel Regeneration stimulates discussion of doctor-patient antipathy, doctor-patient
intimacy, and interprofessional communication. From Reading to Healing also includes the full text of many stories
relevant to the essays; for example, “Toenails” (Richard Selzer),“The Most
Beautiful Woman in Town” (Charles Bukowski), “The Speckled Rash” (Mikhail
Bulgakov), “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” (Leo Tolstoy), “The Use of Force” (William
Carlos Williams) and “The Birthmark” (Nathaniel Hawthorne). In addition
to stories and novels, From Reading to
Healing presents essays on teaching with film, religious literature, and
even comics, cf. “Assisting Students in the Creation of a Class Oath Using
Comics,” by Michael Redinger, Cheryl Dickson, and Elizabeth Lorbeer (p. 217)
