In Rita Charon’s writing, she explains how she utilizes the practice of writing Parallel Charts as a way to implement Narrative Medicine in practice. For this exercise, she explains to her students to write the regular chart of the patient, but to also write a second chart about their emotions throughout the patient experience. She says the goals of the chart are to “enable them to recognize more fully what their patients endure and to examine explicitly their own journeys through medicine.” I believe that this idea is so powerful because it allows the doctor to understand the importance of their patients emotional needs by forcing them to build a connection with their patient. Secondly, I do like how Rita Charon is teaching these ideas to medical students, and these practices should be taught to medical students all over. I also believe that one major excuse for not implementing Narrative Medicine is the time that it takes to talk to a patient and hear their whole story. However, Frank and the ACE study had proven that it only takes two minutes for the patients to get into their emotions while talking with the doctor in a patient interview. Doctors should, in their patient visit, allow for the first two minutes for the patient to just talk. This has already proven to have numerous health benefits and time saving benefits to medicine.
