NARRATIVE AND MEDICINE 2012

Title of the paper:

“Bring the patient in!”

Abstract: This presentation is about the importance I attribute in nursing to the two-way process of talking and listening to the patients; how this helps bringing them into their own care through their own stories about past and present life experience.

It is based on true patients with whom I came across throughout my nursing studies and career, such as a French cuisine cook and a lady with physical and learning disabilities. I shall maintain the principles of confidentiality throughout this presentation. These case studies and the narratives they enclose have taught me how crucial understanding these stories can be for doctors, nurses and patients and the potential bridges that can be built throughout the patients’ care and journey in a hospital setting.

It aims at being a reflection about the importance of these stories for an approach suited to each individual patient and for an effective treatment. It also aims at demonstrating how stories can often carry a richness of information which often does not fit in any yes/no questionnaire or form but which is extremely valuable. This can be picked up and worked around and then it may even integrate our care-plans serving the interest of the patients, healthcare workers, student nurses, or even relatives/friends of those patients.

Above all, sharing these stories is the main aim of this presentation, hoping that they enhance the potential therapeutic effect of narratives in nursing and maybe in healthcare as a whole.

Biographical information: After a Degree in Biology concluded in Lisbon in 2006, Maria Albino decided to go to London and start a Diploma in Higher Education in Nursing. The necessity of being with people and working with people made her leave behind nature, the labs and the field work and embrace a totally different pathway. She has now been working for 2 years as a staff nurse in a surgical ward at Kings College Hospital in London and wishes to pursue a career in this field. At the same time she has been an interpreter for Portuguese patients across various hospitals in London.