Medical schools throughout history have taught future doctors that medicine is both science and art, but the push to implement more rigorous scientific approach to medical care has diminished and marginalized the art of medicine in the last few decades.

The push to apply research-based data and evidence-based medicine has created a new culture where governments and policymakers are trying to force doctors to practice so called cook-book medicine.

It is a concept where people are treated, not as unique individual humans, but as a category of diagnosis for which they have a set of treatments recommended by experts. If you deviate from the standard recommendations, you may be penalized for not following the standard of care.

Proponents of this standardization of care have their merits; it is better for the population as a whole. More people with heart attacks are saved now than before, at least in part, because of the implementation of evidence-based medicine.

The opponents of this cook-book approach to medicine have become more vocal in the last few years and different concepts and terms have been defined to try to bring back the art of medicine back at the patients bedside.

One such concept called narrative medicine is gaining ground in some academic institutions. Narrative medicine encourages doctors to put the focus back on the story of illness. It encourages health care providers to listen to the unique human story of the patient and understand their unique situation before jumping to categorize the patient into a diagnostic algorithm that mechanically forces a common set of diagnostic tests and treatments to all patients in the category.

What is the best treatment for the masses may not be the best option for an individual patient. In my opinion, a fine balance between the evidence-based approach and subjective, individualized, narrative approach is needed to preserve the best interest of all patients.

When you are sick, the care you receive should be based on your unique situation, not what worked for people with similar diagnosis in a research study. The research findings should be used as a guideline to tailor a unique approach to your treatment based on your unique circumstances.

Ignoring the research findings would be a mistake but so would be using the one-size-fits-all approach to individual patients.

The narrative and subjective approach to medicine is especially important to patients who do not easily fit into a typical pattern of an illness. To get to the bottom of the cause of the suffering of that particular patient, we must first stop thinking about the standard set of diagnoses. If we dont, we will be trying to categorize the patient instead of trying to find the right diagnosis.

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Let’s put art back in medicine