In 2001, the nation's oldest public hospital-Bellevue Hospital, in New York City-became the first hospital to host a literary magazine.

The Bellevue Literary Review (BLR), published twice yearly by the New York University School of Medicine, emphasizes the centrality of narrative in patient care. In teaching medical students, I'd found that taking a history and performing a physical had degenerated into the dutiful completion of checklists, obscuring the patient's unique voice. I asked my students to simply tell the patient's story in a narrative form, and they were surprised by the creativity and insight that resulted from focusing on the patient. This emphasis on the importance of the patient's story provided a much needed balance to the more impersonal side of patient care.

The BLR is a journal that examines the human condition through the prism of health, healing, illness, and disease. While a few of our submissions are from health care professionals and students, the overwhelming majority are from writers and other people for whom these themes resonate. The BLR is very interested in the perspective of nurses and is seeking high-caliber writing by and about nurses. We have published a number of stories and poems that focus on, for example, the intimacy that arises between nurses and patients.

Please visit our Web site, http://www.blreview.org, to read selections, view submission guidelines, and subscribe.