Narrative Democracy in Health Care.

Abstract

This article explores the potential of narrative medicine to strengthen the democratic ethos in health care. The heart of narrative medicine is attentive listening, an often scarce resource in our democratic communities. By listening to those who are traditionally voiceless and disenfranchised-the sick, the disabled, the old, the frail-narrative medicine empowers vulnerable patients' voices against the dominant discourse of health professionals and contributes to treating the moral injuries inflicted on patients by epistemic and social injustice. In addition to helping to democratize decision-making in health care, attentive listening could also prove therapeutic for democracy itself, by challenging the abstract and disembodied style of our political systems and making room for the vulnerability and finitude of our human condition in the constitution of citizens.