Moving toward Narrative Competence and Inclusive Healthcare through the Open Book Project.

This essay offers a layered account of the origins and enactment of a narrative medicine program at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine titled the Open Book Project (OBP). Narrative medicine positions clinical judgment as involving both scientific and narrative reasoning, a set of practices particularly well-suited to fostering inclusive health care and social justice. The OBP involved first-year medical students who met bi-monthly to witness, reflect on, and write about literary passages, visual images, music and lyrics, and other works of art. Sessions also provided opportunities for participants to attentively listen and respond to others, opening themselves to diverse ways of knowing and being. The authors move between academic literature, participants' compositions developed during the project, and students' testimonies to illustrate the dividends and difficulties of narrative medicine.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorders in the Primary Care Setting.

Mental health is a very important component of whole health because the body, mind, and spirit are woven together to create the fabric of a person's life. Many people in the United States and globally are living with mental health challenges, and it seems that much more attention has been given to anxiety-related mental health conditions in the past few years due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. The pandemic may certainly have accelerated the onset of mental health conditions for some who were already predisposed, whether it be to depression, anxiety, psychosis, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, to name a few.