Joseph Eveld is a lecturer in Columbia’s CPA and M.S. in Narrative Medicine (NMED) program—a program he knows well, having also graduated from it.
In many ways, Eveld is a perfect spokesperson for narrative medicine. As an adolescent, he underwent years of treatment and a year of chemotherapy for an aggressive form of bone cancer called osteosarcoma. After his recovery, he wanted to give back in some way through medicine, but found that his skills were best aligned with literature and creative writing. Discovering narrative medicine finally gave him the opportunity to combine those two interests.
While Eveld is currently transitioning out of his main role as program manager for the Division of Narrative Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center to pursue a Ph.D. in English at Northeastern University, the frameworks and lessons of narrative medicine continue to guide him. As a Ph.D. candidate, he plans to focus on LGBTQIA+ literature, disability narratives, and medical humanities. He is also writing a novel centered on themes of queer identity and grief.
“I honestly think that anybody interested in doing work that deals with human experience in some way and is trying to make a difference in that area should be thinking about [narrative medicine],” says Eveld. He added that, although the field began within a medical context, “the skills that we teach are applicable in so many ways.”
We spoke with Eveld to hear his narrative medicine journey in his own words.
Could you start by sharing your story and what led you to study narrative medicine?
Essentially, it was the experience of being an adolescent cancer survivor. I was diagnosed at 13, went through a couple of years of treatment and chemotherapy, and then had an amputation when I was 16. I've been healthy since then, but that experience really shaped my sense of self and what was important, and I thought I wanted to translate it into helping other people. I had become kind of weirdly comfortable in the hospital from being there so much, and I was really inspired by all the doctors and medical professionals I worked with. So my initial goal when I went to college was to be premed. But I took organic chemistry and calculus, and that was the end of that. I realized that's not how my brain works.
I switched to English and Creative Writing because that's where my other interests were, and went on to get an MFA in Creative Writing at Boston University. I worked in publishing for years, and on some creative projects, but still felt like there was a little something missing. And that's when I saw narrative medicine. I was really passionate about the ways that narrative medicine could be used in patient care— especially with trauma and terminal illness—because that was my experience, both with myself and having lost friends. That's how I began to utilize my experience as a creative writer to teach creative writing, explore illness and disability narratives, and specifically disability activism and LGBTQI narratives.
What is narrative medicine exactly?
All of us who study narrative medicine have a running joke about the fact that we hate that question—because it's such a complex answer. I think the answer I try to give most often is that it's by engaging with and studying stories and the concept of narratives, and how narratives are constructed, that helps teach us about ourselves and other people. And applying those skills, developing those skills in a medical environment, is useful in helping you deal with people. There's the quantifiable part of medicine, which is data and treatments, and then a question of: how are you engaging with the human experience of it? And that's what the narrative skills give you the tools to do.
How is narrative medicine employed in the medical setting?
I help lead bio-psychosocial rounds at Allen Hospital, which are integrated into their residency training program. Especially when there's a yearly turnover in residents in that program, narrative medicine is there to help them cope with that training. And at Akron Children's Hospital, one of our certificate graduates, Nicole Robinson, is closely tied to the expressive arts therapy program there. It's been really revelatory because what she's doing isn't specifically counseling or mental health, but they have found that by having her do this kind of narrative-based work, it has opened up therapeutic conversations that many of the children and patients might not have known they needed to have. You have to see it for yourself.
I once conducted a workshop for a wellness day with a clinical team and brought in a poem that had notes of being inspirational, while also allowing for some deeper conversations about topics like self-harm, so I wanted to get a sense of that perspective in our conversation. When we got to the writing portion, they wrote about a patient that they had lost. They said, “That was 10 years ago. I didn't realize how much it was still weighing on my mind.” Narrative medicine can be a potentially huge way to unlock things that people don't know they're even carrying with them. I think Columbia is unique in the way that it approaches this training. The depth of what is possible through narrative medicine is really vital. Those moments can happen, but if somebody who doesn’t know how to facilitate this work encounters them, it could be damaging [for those involved]. But if people are trained properly, it can also be incredibly useful and allow space for those experiences to come up and be processed.
What is special about Columbia’s NMED program?
Narrative medicine was really born out of Columbia. A lot of Columbia-trained faculty had a hand in developing it. I think for me, what is special about Columbia’s program compared to other places I've seen that say that they're practicing narrative medicine is the depth of the scholarship and the grounded theory behind the practice that really takes accountability for the potential it has. Columbia practices it ethically in a well-informed way and really gives you the iceberg beneath the water in terms of an interdisciplinary focus on creative writing, literary studies, philosophy, and qualitative research.
Do you have any thoughts about the future of narrative medicine, particularly given the use of AI tools now in some therapeutic settings?
I think there are amazing possibilities for AI in diagnostics and a lot of other areas in medicine that people are talking about. But I think the thing that’s most concerning about the use of AI is that it doesn't seem like there's a lot of accountability around long-term thinking and the implications. One of my favorite movies growing up was Jurassic Park, and I have this joke: Science can tell you how to clone a dinosaur. The humanities can tell you why this might be a bad idea. I think the role of narrative medicine is to add human accountability to understanding the implications, and maybe helping to find ethical guidelines for how something like AI should be used. I think we have a role in understanding what AI is capable of and not, and why people respond to it in certain ways. And STEM isn't going to answer that question. It's going to be the humanities.
What was it like teaching in the program you graduated from?
It's such an honor. It's been really wonderful to see how the program has evolved since I was a student. It’s also incredibly rewarding, knowing how transformative some of these materials were for me in learning them, and then being able to turn around and see that process happen for other people—having conversations with folks who are having their eyes open to the same things that were eye-opening for me. Even people who are clinicians have said, “I never imagined myself as a writer, but this gave me the courage to really throw away that idea and just be creative. And that has transformed how I think about my patients and how I can be creative in my day-to-day work.” Hearing those testimonials is the most rewarding thing.
About the Program
Columbia University’s Master of Science in Narrative Medicine prepares health professionals, writers, and scholars to apply the skills and values of narrative understanding to improve outcomes for both patients and caregivers. It offers a rigorous and in-depth study of close reading of creative texts, illness and disability narratives, narrative ethics, philosophy, creative writing, and other perspectives. The master’s program is available for part-time or full-time enrollment. Learn more here.
The program also offers a Certification of Professional Achievement (CPA) in Narrative Medicine. The spring 2026 application deadline for the CPA program is November 1.
