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Previous Volume 353:1637 October 13, 2005 Number 15 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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(Progress in Pain Research and Management. Vol. 34.) Edited by Daniel B. Carr, John D. Loeser, and David B. Morris. 362 pp., illustrated. Seattle, IASP Press, 2005. $89. ISBN 0-931092-57-4.

Long ago, Sir William Osler stated that it matters more what kind of patient has the disease, than what kind of disease it is. Getting to know the patient requires understanding his or her story and the meaning behind it — thus, the importance of paying attention to the patient's narrative. In recent years, there has been much discussion of the use of narrative in medicine as a way of understanding patients' conditions. According to Julia Connelly (writing in the Winter 2005 issue of Perspectives in Biology and Medicine),

narrative is ever present in medicine and is an integral . . . [Full Text of this Article]