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Miriam Ticktin is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at The New School For Social Research in New York City. Her research focuses on "what it means to make political claims in the name of a universal humanity" and more recently looks at humanitarianism at various levels. For emergency response her work focuses more on response done for humanitarian aid and displaced peoples. 

http://www.newschool.edu/nssr/faculty/?id=4d54-6379-4e44-4d35

The author is making the point that we are too caught up in the numbers and facts of medicine, and we need to go back to the narrative. The details that come with a patient's history and social actions contribute a great deal to outcome and treatment. The author supports this with several examples of cases he has had or heard of and how they changed his view of a treatment.