The cast of ETSU's Dispatches from the Other Kingdom raise their glasses to friendship and to life. From left they are Kenny Telford, Libby Tipton, Saundra Kelley, Joseph Sobol, and Christine Murdock.
In 2009, the James H. Quillen College of Medicine and the ETSU Storytelling Program received a five-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute to develop and assess a series of training modules that use stories from patients and clinicians.
The project is now entering the third year of a five-year grant cycle. Interviews have been done with more than 80 cancer patients as well as groups of patients with a variety of cancer types and stages. Using those interviews, the ETSU Storytelling Program created an original story theater piece, Dispatches from the Other Kingdom, exploring the dramatic and healing potentials of illness narratives.
"There are no better resources than the voices of patients when teaching physicians how to be effective in their communication," said Dr. Forrest Lang, principal investigator and professor of family medicine at ETSU's Quillen College of Medicine.
Lang is part of a multidisciplinary team of researchers who developed the modules using videotaped interviews with cancer patients. Topics addressed in the modules include breaking bad news, undergoing treatment, transitioning from curative to end-of-life care, religious and spiritual factors in cancer care, and communications with families of cancer patients.
"One trend we found was that there is no single best way to communicate with cancer patients about their disease," Lang added. "Some desire to talk about prognosis, others want to focus on hope, and there are some who just want honesty. It is important that the physician understand what the patient prefers."
Co-investigators joining Lang in the study are Dr. K. Krishnan, chief of hematology and oncology and professor of internal medicine; Dr. Robert Enck, professor of internal medicine; and Dr. Joseph Sobol, storytelling program coordinator and professor of curriculum and instruction.
"Having a medical school and an academic storytelling program working together is a unique model, and it was because of this innovative partnership that we were able to obtain this major grant," Krishnan said. "Through our own research endeavors, including the Rural Appalachian Cancer Demonstration Project and other pilot studies, we learned several years ago that there were problems related to physician-patient communication. The data we collected became the foundation for this grant."
For further information, call Dr. Sobol at 423-439-7863 or email sobol@etsu.edu.
