Languages of Care in Narrative Medicine

Maria Giulia Marini is an epidemiologist, counselor at the Health and Wellness Department of the Fondazione ISTUD, Baveno, Italy. With a classic humanistic background, she had a scientific academic training in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology, and specialized in epidemiology and pharmacology,: She developed a specific interest in the integration of humanities and sciences to favour care   humanization and to offer patients  a health system more in line with their needs. With 28 years of professional experience in health care, she is currently on the board of Italian Society of Narrative Medicine, tenured professor of Narrative Medicine at Humanitas University of Milan, Faculty of Medicine,  and referee for  WHO for  “Narrative Method in Public Health.”  Author of more than 100 national publications and several international publications, in 2013 she founded the online journal Chronicle of Narrative Medicine.

• Narrative medicine and narrative care: the state of art of this discipline, success and pitfalls and new perspective of methodologies. The World Health Organization policies on narrative research.- 2 Narrative medicine encounters linguistic: Natural Semantic Metalanguage and the role of the Universal words in health and illness. Destructuring the names of disease up the atomic meaning. (interview to Prof. Anna Wierzbicka, Australian National University).- 3 Narrative medicine across countries: bridging the gap of cultural differences by linguistic methodology, from universal to local cultural scripts of illness.- 4 Saying the illness: putting in order between narrative medicine and storytelling. Narrative medicine based on real stories in the health care echo system.. clustering the illness narratives. Storytelling,  based on fiction, inspired to true facts as industry for movies, literature and entertainment. (interview to Carol Ann Farkas, Massachusset College of Pharmacyand Health Sciences, Boston).- 5 Time and being ill and curer:  a long time- the chronic disease, the waiting time, the recovery, a moment, the time of a decision making, the communication of a diagnosis. My time is different from your time, alias the subjective perception of time, young and elder, patients and healthy  people. Time and neuroscience.- 6 The good words: curing the language of cure. The heaviness of the prescriptive jargon and the need to contain the moral judgement while curing. Towards a lighter language, for a better caring and better outcomes.  The cases of the word clouds. Language, sound, music and neuroscience. (Interview to John Launer, Emeritus at Tavistock Center).- 7 The good places: in the echo system, the environment can produce better wellbeing and health. Neurosciences and architecture: the need of therapeutic places of care. The languages of proportions and colours. (Interview to architects and artists).- 8 The good thinking and doing when illness comes. Convergences and differences between  spirituality and religion in the narratives of patients. Patients’ beliefs as starting point to engage the pathway of care.  Intelligent kindness as a spiritual sense of belonging to kinship in the health care sector. What neuroscience says. (Interview to John Ballatt).- 9 Words definition and tables for narratives readings.- 10 The cases from physical and mind conditions.- 11 Cancer narratives in men and women to preserve fertility. An across country study on patients living with a stoma- Italy and Australia.  How patients are excluded/ integrated in the health care system.- 12 Respiratory narratives from patients and carers:  analogies and differences between the two different point of views.- 13 he autistic perspective and narrative medicine: a tool to communicate using natural semantic metalanguage.

“This book explores how our interactions with patients both help and hinder the delivery of healthcare. It is a philosophical book that seeks to balance evidence-based medicine with the need to listen and understand the patient through narrative medicine. … This is a book for thinkers in medicine and linguistics, caretakers of patients, all medical personnel, and clinicians at all levels of expertise and specialization.” (Vincent F Carr, Doody's Book Reviews, April 12, 2019)