Lessons from narrative medicine: Cancer care will improve with narrative oncologyLessons from narrative medicine: Cancer care will improve with narrative oncology.

ABSTRACT

Narrative medicine (NM) is a new discipline in healthcare that helps the patients and physicians to tell and listen to the accounts of disease, illness, and suffering. In the last 20 years, NM has moved into the realms of biomedical education, research, and training. The complexity of cancer management can gain from the medical humanism of NM. A new model of cancer care called narrative oncology (NO) with NM-based skill sets of attention, representation, and affiliation can build narrative competence, therapeutic relationship, and clinical trust. The oncologists, patients, and their family caregivers, and the cancer care health system will create an inclusive and empathetic eco-system. This paper outlines the broad framework of NM, which becomes narrative oncology for cancer medicine. The clinicians, nurses, health workers, and scientists should learn and implement this new discipline alongside their biomedical activities.