As first-year internal medicine-psychiatry resident, Jeffrey Lee, MD, yearned to get to know his patients at the Duke Outpatient Clinic (DOC) beyond their ailments and medications. But the time constraints of brief appointments and the complexity of his patients’ medical conditions often left him feeling unable to connect with them on a deeper, more personal level. As the year wore on, he sensed his empathy eroding and his grasp on his patients’ humanity slipping away from him.
This disheartening experience inspired Lee, who practices mindfulness and seeks to be present in each moment, to leverage his passion for storytelling and photography to explore his patients’ unique stories. Ultimately, he hoped the process would help him restore the connection between his values and his work.
Lee conceptualized a narrative medicine project, “Untold Stories,” with a DOC colleague, Katherine Henderson, MDiv, BCC, a senior clinical administrative chaplain, and secured funding from Duke’s Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine.