When storytelling helps to experience dying (and not only...) in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Abstract

In the world of Neonatal Intensive Care, technical and scientific progress goes hand in hand with the need to face very strong emotions and delicate communication balances every day not only within
the operator group but also towards the families of small hospitalized patients. These skills become all the more important in the case
of chronic disease or death of a newborn. Narrative Based Medicine (NBM), in the field of Medical Humanities, fits beautifully into these needs, representing not an alternative to Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) but integrating with it to outline a holistic approach to the Newborn Patient and his family. From this point of view, Narrative Based Medicine must be considered not only a cultural but also a mo-ral imperative for the new generations of care operators and as such must be fully included in the curricula of educational paths.