Physician, Writer, Narrative Medicine Scholar

At the forefront of the emerging narrative medicine discipline, Sayantani DasGupta is teaching students a new form of practice that connects literature with medicine in order to treat the whole person, not just the illness. She is an assistant clinical professor of pediatrics and a core faculty member of the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. Narrative Medicine is both a clinical discipline committed to placing stories at the center of the health care relationship and a lively interdisciplinary field at the interces of arts, humanities, science and social sciences. Through narrative training, the Program in Narrative Medicine helps doctors, nurses, social workers, and therapists to improve the effectiveness of care by developing the capacity for attention, reflection, representation, and affiliation with patients and colleagues. Dr. DasGupta's research and outreach missions are conceptualizing, evaluating, and spear-heading these ideas and practices nationally and internationally.