“The Importance of Narrative ” was born of frustration.Narrative, or qualitative, research can be rigorous, well cited, and influential. Researchers in medicine and health policy, however, generally prefer numbers to narrative.

In fall of 2020, I explained to a group of new sociology graduate students “what I do.” In these annual conversations, I often focus on my work as an ethnographer – a social scientist who observes people interacting in the real-world settings where life unfolds.

MCL member Krista Harrison first attended to hospice as a care model when her grandmother reached the end of her life.

In seventh grade English, Ms. Wescott drilled into her Diamond Junior High School students the golden rule of effective writing: show don’t tell.Showing culture is tricky. Culture includes values, beliefs, and practices shared by a group.

In many traditions, qualitative data analysis occurs over a period of months or years, much of it after engagement with research participants has concluded. Often, researcher(s) conduct their analytic work without further participant input, but some embrace the practice of “member checking.”

Being raised in more than one culture gives a unique vantage point. Na’amah Razon, a MD family physician and PhD medical anthropologist, split her childhood between Israel and the United States.