"Is Oral History Good for You?": Taking Oral History beyond Documentation and into a Clinical Setting: First Steps

What happens when medical science invites the humanities into its world? How do we, can we, measure and evaluate the qualitative process and product of oral history to quantitative researchers? Can we incorporate a quantitative tool into the oral history process to persuasively argue that some patient populations would benefit from the inclusion of a patient-centered, oral narrative intervention? This is the story of one effort to test the effectiveness of oral history interviewing in a clinical setting by its inclusion in a treatment program for veterans with prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is the most prevalent cancer in males, but currently there are no definitive treatment guidelines. This lack of medical consensus on treatment causes significant psychological distress for many patients, and, increasingly, medical professionals are interested in finding alternative ways to address their patients' concerns. This paper concludes that exploring the efficacy of an oral history intervention is a worthy endeavor, particularly when there is no clear path toward healing. If it is determined that an oral history intervention benefits veterans with prostate cancer, might it not also help other patient populations with chronic or terminal illness?