For the last several years Karen Gold, Curriculum Lead at the NBM Lab, has been musing about narrative and healthcare in her blog, Art of the Story. In this blog article, she reflects on the role of place in narrative-based medicine. 

“Practitioners of the Hospital” examines hospitals as narrative spaces shaped by their physical design. Drawing on insights from poetry, architecture, and art, Karen shows how everyday hospital spaces shape the experience of illness and care.

She is drawn to the idea of “hospital-as-city,” which encourages readers to think about physical spaces of care, and urges patients, learners, and practitioners to think about clinical environments “with a writer’s eye and a tourist’s curiosity.” 

Read the blog story to experience the hospital from a perspective you have never seen before.