Dear reader,

As you embark on your Narrative Medicine journey, you’ll find this isn’t your typical class. Here, you can feel free to think and express your ideas how you please, as well as learn the foundational skills of what sets one doctor aside from the next. Let me share my journey:

For starters, the best way to have an easier time is don’t procrastinate and burn time. Despite the assignment, don’t wait. Even if it’s not the hardest class you’ll have in Sophie Davis, there’s a lot of things going on and submitting early is the best way to do it. You can get ahead on the next assignments and whatever else you need. Highly recommended.

You’re going to start with my personal favorite, The Outsider Narrative. This essay is all about you. My narrative was my transition from my community into the program to the point where “I felt distant from the community I’ve grown up in my whole life.” I found it quite easy to write once I established the narrative. The key for this one is really to let your mind wander and don’t feel restricted by others’ judgement, I promise, no one is judging. It’s a great way to get to know your classmates and their experiences and share your own.

Afterwards, you’re going to head to the Metaphor Essay. I found this one more difficult since it is more academic than the Outsider Narrative. This essay obligates you to critically think about metaphors from our Narrative Medicine course and connect it to a different text in relation to pain, suffering, or illness. The hardest part is to find that connection. I focused on the metaphors we use to describe cancer, such as “invaded by alien cells,” and how we use those types of degrading metaphors to describe the Jewish people and other groups. I found it helpful to make an outline as my first draft rather than taking the time to write a whole essay from scratch since it helps me organize my thoughts, especially with complex essays where you might not grasp the concept the first try. I recommend figuring out which external topic to use beforehand because once you have your outside source, you just need to establish the metaphor as a bridge between the texts.

Ah, the Critical Lens Essay, this one was something. The goal of this essay is to take a Narrative Medicine text and apply it to an outside text through the lens of the Narrative Medicine text. Sounds confusing? Don’t worry, you’ll get it. My narrative medicine text lens was how “Dracula and the idea of religion are antagonists to each other” compared to the novel The Scarlet Letter. I found it really difficult to obtain that outside text that accurately fit within the lens I was using. The best way to do it is to dive into so many different texts that you know are similar to the Narrative Medicine text. Do not restrict yourself- anything can be that connection. Writing an outline helped me create a train of thought that needed to be clarified before the writing process began.

The final and grand essay you’re going to write is the Research Project. Wow, there are a lot of parts to this. However, the many parts you need to do make the essay much easier to write since you are so familiar with the sources you’re using for your research. Choose a topic that interests you and run wild. Don’t hold back because you can take this essay to the moon and back- that’s how much flexibility there is. I researched “The Masculine Identity Forcing Men into the Breadwinning Norm of Society.” What ended up being difficult for me was formatting my final essay because there were many pieces floating around. Use outlines and the initial assignments to organize your ideas and sources so the essay comes out nicely. Don’t worry about perfection, in all the essays there are so many people helping you out and making reviews that you can make your work exactly how you want it even after your initial ideas are put on paper.

Enjoy Narrative Medicine!

Albert Saff