ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the advantages of storytelling in healthcare provision, more specifically in cancer and palliative care education. Storytelling is the perfect vehicle to illustrate some of the key features that embody the delivery of high standards of oncology and palliative care. It is an opportunity to encourage students to participate in listening to their patients' stories. A major part of any clinician's training includes listening to each patient' stories by eliciting from them their perspective of events at the time the clinician encounters them. The types of stories that are common in healthcare education include real life stories, which later become case studies. These can include stories which may or may not include real people and the occasional hypothetical story. Most importantly, stories can give a voice to patients when they are no longer able tell their own stories and may go on to transform healthcare provision.