Narrative Medicine (re)focuses on subjective experiences in the complex and diverse field of illness and health care. In using methods from the humanities, Narrative Medicine is not a replacement but an important supplement to evidence-based Medicine (EBM) that wishes to counteract some of the deficits of EBM. Narrative Medicine advocates a more humane health care system anchored in both the humanities and the natural sciences.
The German Network for Narrative Medicine situates itself in the tradition of the „Narrative Medicine“ program, founded by the US-American physician and literary scholar Rita Charon at Columbia University, New York City. The German Network also embraces other approaches that aim at linking the objectives of health care with the humanities, such as narrative-based medicine in the United Kingdom as well as approaches in the Medical Humanities and Health Humanities.