Building Stronger Virtual Clinician-Patient Relationships with Narrative Medicine
Since the pandemic, the use of telemedicine—the act of giving and receiving care virtually—is 38x higher than what it was before April 2020. Since then, most of us have experienced the benefits of telemedicine: It’s convenient, it offers quick and expanded access to care and it cuts down on the spreading of germs for both patients and practitioners.
But telemedicine comes with one big challenge: The doctor-patient relationship. Studies show that strong clinician-patient relationships drive more positive health outcomes. But forging meaningful and trusting clinician-patient relationships during telehealth consults can be challenging. In an interview with the Washington Post, author of the book “Meetings Matter” Paul Axtell explains, “In-person meetings provide a sense of intimacy, connection and empathy that is difficult to replicate via video. It’s much easier to ask for attentive listening and presence, which creates the psychological safety that people need to sense in order to engage and participate fully.”
So how do we create that psychological safety and empathy over video? By applying the principles of Narrative Medicine.
As you’ve likely heard me talk about, Narrative Medicine is a clinical practice focused on learning how to receive and absorb patient stories, interpret them, be moved by them and honor them. My work centers around helping people heal through the power of story across disciplines and industries, rooted in my clinical Narrative Medicine training alongside indigenous healing modalities. In the clinical setting specifically, the purpose of narrative medicine is to help practitioners communicate and listen with more empathy so patients feel more seen and trusting of their doctors, leading to more positive health outcomes. The Narrative Medicine framework also helps doctors feel more connected to their patients, decreasing stress and burnout.
In partnership with Dr. Kristin Collier, Dr. Julie Chen and Ranjeet Ahluwalia, Founder of Silbospark LLC, we applied the principles of Narrative Medicine to develop a simple framework that inspires deeply connected clinician-patient telemedicine interactions:
Immerse: Receive and absorb each patient or client’s story. This is the art of immersing yourself in their world and experiences.
Invite: Interpret and be moved by their stories.
Institute: Honor their stories.
We’re in the midst of a study gathering qualitative research on this approach and will share more soon. In the meantime, if you’re a practitioner interested in applying narrative medicine principles (like this one) to your work, check out our programs at Narrative Bridge.