"Narrative humility suggests the possibilities of something transcendent, what Broyard calls the opportunity to become “transfigured”. It approaches what has been called mindfulness in medicine. Indeed, humility is a central aspect of many spiritual traditions, whereby the stance of humility is one that enables not only personal growth, but is a hallmark of some degree of spiritual enlightenment—whereby the most learned monks are the most humble, recognising how much they have left to learn. This does not imply that physicians abandon their scientific knowledge, or their sense of “competence”. Rather, narrative humility enables a physician to place herself in a position of receptivity, where she does not merely act upon others, but is in turn acted upon. So much of a doctor's life consists of stories. Narrative humility is a point of entry into those stories, allowing us to reconfigure our own relationships to the work of doctoring, to the Other before us, and to the Self within."
