Moving toward Narrative Competence and Inclusive Healthcare through the Open Book Project

This essay offers a layered account of the origins and enactment of a narrative medicine program at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine titled the Open Book Project (OBP). Narrative medicine positions clinical judgment as involving both scientific and narrative reasoning, a set of practices particularly well-suited to fostering inclusive health care and social justice. The OBP involved first-year medical students who met bi-monthly to witness, reflect on, and write about literary passages, visual images, music and lyrics, and other works of art. Sessions also provided opportunities for participants to attentively listen and respond to others, opening themselves to diverse ways of knowing and being. The authors move between academic literature, participants' compositions developed during the project, and students' testimonies to illustrate the dividends and difficulties of narrative medicine.