Narrative Matters, 2nd Edition

Narrative Matters shows how health care policies affect real people. Policy loves charts and statistics. These stories fill in the conflicts, the emotions, the frequent pain and occasional joys of being somewhere on one of those charts. Numbers make no moral demands on us; only faces require a response. In these stories, we see the faces that health care policy is all about.

Narrative Matters showcases some of health care’s most stunning writing. The stories are moving, eloquent, and often unforgettable.

A doctor kneels on a highway and watches a child die from a completely preventable accident, as the boy’s father wails, ‘Wake up, my son!’ A baby dies because of language barriers and bureaucracy in the clinic. A nurse quits in despair, stopped by the system from doing the right thing. A governor makes a wrenching choice between a world-class transplant program and basic care for 600,000 people. If these true stories of needless tragedy don’t convince you our health care system is broken, you must have a heart of stone.

For any reader enthralled by the literature of medicine, these fascinating, compelling, and beautifully written doctor stories were written expressly for you.

Narrative does matter. That’s why these writers are so successful in making the reader feel and respond to their frustration, anger, pain, sadness, confusion, joy, or loving kindness by writing personal narratives of health care. Had they addressed us on a purely intellectual level, we might have developed a clearer idea about how to create a more equitable health care system, but we’d have less motivation, less passion, for the task. Narrative Matters is a splendid achievement. This wonderful collection will make a big difference in the way the reader thinks about many of the important issues facing health care today. I suspect this book will do a great deal to enhance public awareness of the human stories at the center of our US health care system.

This compilation is unique … because of its strong relevance to today’s health policy … These narratives matter.

This volume is relevant to researchers, clinicians, and health care policy makers, and I recommend it highly.

To begin to understand the many challenges facing the US health care system, you could spend years in the shadow of doctors, patients, medical students, and legislators. Or you could just read this book. Narrative Matters opens a window into what’s happening in American medicine through the minds and pens of those in the middle of it all. At times insightful, depressing, uplifting, and direct, Narrative Matters accomplishes a rare feat–a book as well-written as it is necessary.

Very helpful … An essential library volume.

Jessica Bylander is a senior editor at Health Affairs and the editor of “Narrative Matters.”