ABSTRACT
Medical professionals in China are increasingly interested and eager to engage in Narrative Medicine. The power of narrative to facilitate medical practices with its competence in the recognition, interpretation, and reconstruction of illness stories is being widely welcomed by physicians to better understand their profession and to cope with the ever-changing work environment. This article examines medical narratives on aspects of the working life in medicine and analyses how physicians' self-reflective writings reshape their outlook upon the ideas of illness, their relationships with others involved in the medical process, and their identity as doctors for the larger community. Contemporary Chinese doctors embrace Narrative Medicine but with variations closely linked to culturally specific customs and concepts. The act of writing about oneself helps to create for medical care providers a context in which science and humanity, past and present, and the individual and his/ her community are all interrelated.
