Natalia Romano Spica, BA is a board member of JNV. At Columbia University, she double majored in ‘Medicine Literature and Society’ and ‘Biology’, convinced that the art of medicine requires both sciences and humanities to provide each patient with effective and humane care. As a clinical research coordinator at Mount Sinai’s Department of Ophthalmology, she developed a strong interest in the study and care of the eye, an organ so central to our human experience. While applying to medical school, Natalia is a student at Columbia’s Narrative Medicine program. She believes that “narrative competence” can be applied to improve patient care and inform medical practice. The same kind of creativity that fuels poetry is also part of the diagnostic and therapeutic process: as light is essential to sight, narrative medicine is crucial to enlighten the patient-doctor relationship, fighting pain and promoting health.