The Role of Anecdotes in Medicine [NYTimes.com]

Samantha Sangenito 10/27/1412:00 PM

In “Why Doctors Need Stories” (Sunday Review, Oct. 19), Dr. Peter D. Kramer indirectly explores “the art of medicine.” This craft consists of the elegant combination of clinical judgment, anticipation, communication and interpretation that is acquired through personal experience and professional heritage.

In a resident-run academic hospital, the art of caring for patients is enveloped in case presentations. Every day, residents interpret a patient’s story and translate it into a reconstructed, fluid narrative in medical terminology. Ultimately, the best storytellers are the best physicians. Trial data and evidence-based medicine are important, but not supreme.

To paraphrase Einstein: In understanding the evolution of a patient’s illness, not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

[For more letters to the editor about this story go to http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10...tes-in-medicine.html]

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