I further researched narrative medicine and to see how widely it is applied to medical fields today. I also researched the areas in the Middle East that were discussed int eh chapter and read about their customs and traditions to further my understanding of how it may influence their actions medically. I also read other parts of the book in order to gain more information on the topic in general.
The author is Byron Good, he is an American medical anthropologist studying mental illness at Harvard University . His work focuses on mental illness in Asian and Indonesian socities.
The main findings in the article is that illness cannot always be black or white sometimes there is shades of gray. This is described through the way the author chose to study and publish seizure disorders in Turkey. He recorded the history of events via a narrative. This was the stories are moer beautiful and detailed. While there may be bias, the 'narratives' describe their lives, a story that can be described across a language barrier.
The article is supported through investigation of what the author thinks the person may have, the narrative of the seizures from the patient and the family and analyzed the information, overall supports the article.
" The story does what no theorem can quite do. It may not be 'like the real life' in the superficial sense; but it sets before us an image of what reality may well be like in some central region."
" in many cases, the actors were still engaged in the story, vs a quest for a cure - in imagining alternative outcomes, evaluating the potential meanings of the past and seeking treatments"
"The diverse accounts of the illness in these narratives represnet attentative plots, a telling of the story in different ways each implying a different story of efficacy and a possiblity of an alternative ending of the story."
The methods and data used to produce the findings is a random collection of narratives from vairous genders, ages, adn walks of life. The only thing they all have in common is a history of seizure disorders. The string that ties them all together allows the author to analyze how a narrative of illness can affect a diagnosis or a familial realtionship
Emergency response is not discussed in this article, however if these people had imediate attention after the intial event they had experienced they may not still be suffereing from seizure disorders.
The article has been referenced in articles that give perspectives of how culture can affect a medical diagnosis. This article was published in 1994 so it was hard to find references on the article.
The article does not have a bibliography listed, however as most of the infromation is first hand accoutns. The taking of these histories must have given the author a new perspective on his profession.
Three points from the article that I looked up was the familial relationships in middle eastern countries, how mental illness is viewed in eastern european countries, and the cultural aspects of a Turkish family.