EPISODE · Jul 28, 2026 · 51 MIN
What in the World Is Narrative Medicine? Listening as a Healing Art with Julia Schneider
from Too Curious MDs · host Too Curious MDs
In this episode of Too Curious MDs, I sit down with Julia Schneider, a narrative-medicine teacher, poet, and pain-care therapist I first met in our original narrative-medicine cohort at Columbia. Julia describes narrative medicine not as a fixed thing but as a mode of attention, a listening practice built on curiosity, humility, and the willingness to think with a person rather than against them. We talk about why story belongs at the forefront of a clinical visit even when time is short, what the research says about how quickly patients get interrupted, and how open-ended questions and simple silence can surface the details that a pain scale never will.From her years in manual and movement therapy, Julia reframes persistent pain as a biopsychosocial experience, one shaped by the nervous system, past trauma, and the stories we tell ourselves, and she offers practical ways to help people feel safer in their own bodies. We also get personal about burnout, the grief so many of us carry from our training, and why reconnecting to the reason we entered this work can be its own kind of medicine. It is a warm, wide-ranging conversation for any clinician or caregiver who senses that healing depends on more than the science alone.- - - - -Julia Schneider is the founder of NarrativeRx, an international learning community helping clinicians, patients, and educators deepen their listening through literature, philosophy, and the arts. She earned Columbia University's Certificate of Professional Achievement in Narrative Medicine (in its original online cohort) and holds a master's in literature from the University of Texas at Austin, leaving a PhD program to open her wellness center.Julia is also a Licensed Massage Therapist and a Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT), with nearly two decades of hands-on work in persistent-pain care and as the founder of RISE Wellness Center in Austin.A writer and poet at heart, she facilitates narrative-medicine workshops for palliative-care teams, chaplains, physicians, and students, using close reading and reflective writing to help healers listen more deeply to their patients and themselves.Website: https://NarrativeRx.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/narrative.rxFacebook: https://facebook.com/groups/narrativemedLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-schneider-3a6282126- - - - -Dr. Alya Ahmad, MD, FAAPLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alya-ahmad-md-0601b190/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamynds/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shamyndsWebsite: https://shamynds.com/Dr. Suraiya Simi Rahman, MD, FAAPWebsite: https://palamedicine.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suraiya-rahman-palamedicine/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pala_medicine/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/palamedicine.pasadena/Too Curious MDsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/toocuriousmds?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qrYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TooCuriousMDs- - - - -This podcast is produced by DrTalks.comhttps://drtalks.com/podcast-service/
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What in the World Is Narrative Medicine? Listening as a Healing Art with Julia Schneider
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