Reading with an "Inveterate Hypochondriac": A Narrative Medicine Approach to Teaching Dostoevsky's "A Gentle Creature"

Narrative medicine, designed to develop empathic listening skills in healthcare professionals, also helps literature teachers discuss ethics without sacrificing critical rigor. Reading the distasteful narrator of Dostoevsky's challenging story as the notorious "hated patient/unreliable historian" of clinical practice, we demonstrate how students can practice reading empathically as a fundamentally ethical act.