The past month has been a flurry of wrapping up the semester and delving into the medical school application process, but I’ve also felt as though I was suspended within a strange state of liminality. I’ve been trying to define my research in the immediate future, but I’ve also been looking beyond that to try to figure out what I hope to accomplish with my passion for illness narratives and how far I can take it through my career in medicine.
I’ve come to realize that ultimately, my primary goal is to become a practicing clinical physician: currently, I hope to be a pediatric oncologist, but I recognize and accept the fact that all that may change in medical school. At the same time, the deeper I delve into the intersection of literature and medicine, the more aware I become of the illness narratives that surround our culture, the more I realize that this semester-long independent study barely scraped the surface. Although I sampled the genres of illness narrative theory, short story, novel, autobiography, memoir, poetry, art, dance, film, and more, there is just so much more for me to explore.
My interest in illness narratives is three-fold: learn, research, teach.
- LEARN: Studying illness narratives has helped me to better understand the experience of illness, and I believe that this exploration is vital to making me a better physician.
- RESEARCH: Making sense of existing illness narratives and conducting research to promote the generation of new ones has helped me to understand literature, to understand medicine, and to understand their intertwinement.
- TEACH: Exposure to illness narratives has entirely changed my understanding of medicine, and I believe that this awareness and perspective is crucial for prospective doctors, so I hope to share my knowledge about this field with others and to promote the general education of illness narratives.
Through all this, it’s become clear to me that no matter where I go for medical school, I am entirely keen on continuing to study illness narratives. And I’ve realized that I can share the process of learning, researching, and teaching in this field with others through the wonderful world-wide web. And so, my blog has abandoned the ‘.word press.’ in favor of simply ‘.com.’
My blog has always been for me, a somewhat personal space where I can reflect naturally, and I hope to preserve my original intent with an added twist. I never wanted to publicize my blog because I was writing only for me, but as I’ve watched people from around the world stumble across it, I’ve realized that there might be other illness narrative enthusiasts who just haven’t quite found the field yet. By turning my blog into a website (I still can’t believe the domain name was even available!), I hope that I can create a centralized space based on the familiarity that I’ve gained with the field.
Six months later, my journey is just beginning. And I’m excited to see how this narrative unfolds.
Investigating Illness Narratives 