Patients have long deplored that their doctors do not really listen to them. A new emerging discipline, narrative medicine, seeks to address this problem by teaching medical students and physicians the value of empathy and, through the use of literature, how to listen, dissect, and reconstruct people's stories. patients. Although Rebecca Elizabeth Garden and Rita Charon agree on many aspects of narrative medicine, Garden tends to be more critical and points out more flaws in her work titled "The Problem of Empathy: Medicine and the Humanities." , while Charon cites the many benefits of narrative medicine. Medicine in “Narrative Medicine: Honoring Stories of Illness.” Although narrative medicine is beneficial because it allows physicians to develop empathy, one must also be aware of the many potential pitfalls and complications that arise from it. In the medical community, there seems to be a divide between disease-centered care and patient-centered care. Charon and Garden readily acknowledge this. Charon explains that while doctors may boast of their "impressive technical advances" and "their ability to eradicate once-deadly infections," they often lack the ability to recognize their patients' pain and demonstrate compassion. empathy (3). Charon further adds that “medicine practiced without a real and compelling awareness of what patients are experiencing [empathy] may fulfill its technical objectives, but it is meaningless medicine, or, at best, half medicine” (5). Often, doctors forget that their patients are more than just a person with cancer or a congenital heart defect: they are human, a whole person with dreams, aspirations and fears. According to Charon, “scientifically competent medicine alone cannot help a patient struggle in the middle of a paper…with the overly empathetic opinions of others. After battling endlessly with an insurer on the phone, Dr. Schiff gave a desperate patient the $3 needed for her painkillers. This isn't Dr. Schiff's first act of kindness. His "past offenses include helping patients find jobs, giving them jobs himself, offering to drive them home, offering them occasional dinner invitations, and, yes, giving them a computer. » Dr. Schiff believes that he is not crossing the border, because Dr. Seldin's borders only contain "technical tasks." Dr. Schiff draws his boundaries so that he can improve his patient's health by helping the patient as a whole. While Charon wholeheartedly supports narrative medicine and narrative knowledge as a means to radically change the practice of medicine, Garden takes a few steps back. objectively assess the problem. The garden dates back to the 18th century