Dipesh Navsaria

Credentials: MPH, MSLIS, MD

Position title: Medical Director, Physician Assistant Program, Professor

Pronouns: he/his

Email: navsaria@wisc.edu

Website: Department of Pediatrics

Phone: (608) 265-5835

Professional headshot of a smiling man with gray hair, gray beard, glasses, red shirt, and blue polka-dot bow tie.

I have been co-teaching Narrative Medicine since it was first offered at SMPH, which has been an intensive but rewarding couple of weeks annually. I also try to bring narrative principles into clinical medicine teaching (both in the classroom around history-taking, and then the application of that practice in actual clinical encounters). Additionally, in my advocacy teaching to professional, graduate, and undergraduate students, I frequently reference narrative methods in how we frame issues, converse with decision-makers, write op-eds, and more.

Furthermore, as someone with significant involvement locally, regionally, and nationally with Reach Out and Read, an Early Literacy program based in primary care clinics, I teach and discuss narrative as a core element of children’s literature and part of building early literacy skills. In the last few years, this has all led me to be the executive producer and host of two podcasts, Reach Out and Read and Teachers, Toddlers, and Tissues, which use elements of story to share ideas, concepts, and facts with the general public. I also write a regular column in The Capital Times, using similar principles.

All of this allows for our learners (and the public) to develop skillful, intentional ways to engaging with others in the name of increasing their understanding about health and the human condition, creating positive social change, and generally making our society one that considers and respects individual stories as facets of a larger societal narrative.