VOLVOX: Making Narrative Medicine Happen Alumni Speaker Series

Treating Patient Well-Being During Chemo:

A pilot study of narrative medicine in the cancer clinic

Eve Makoff, MD, MA, MS, CPA ’23

Logistics pose a major challenge when attempting narrative medicine workshops with patients in active cancer treatment. How can we make such an intervention workable for people already dealing with the impacts of serious illness?

In a pilot study, internist and palliative care physician Eve Makoff offered workshops for patients receiving infusional therapy at a cancer center in Los Angeles. Makoff will share her findings, including an openness to conversations about end-of-life wishes and feelings about death and comfort with sessions despite the busy clinical setting. She will also discuss potential future directions for this kind of research and its implications for clinical practice.

Moderator: Cherie Henderson, PhD