Background In recent decades, the overemphasis on technical aspects of precision medicine may neglect patients' personal feelings, leading to conflicts and tensions between doctors and patients. Narrative medicine is an interdisciplinary approach aimed at facilitating physician-patient communication, enhancing empathy, and improving the quality of medical care through storytelling. However, the global trends and hotspots in the field of narrative medicine remains unclear. To fill this gap, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of the global scientific publications in the field of narrative medicine, utilizing two visualization tools, CiteSpace and VOSviewer, on papers published in the Web of Science database between 2011–2021.Methods The study presented a bibliometric and visual analysis of the research status, global trends and hotspots in narrative medicine. Using the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) as the data source, 736 articles published between 2011 and 2021 were retrieved and analyzed based on publications, authors, countries, institutions, journals, and keywords.Results Over the past decade, the number of publications in this field has steadily increased each year. The study found that American scholars contributed the most research papers in this field (369 papers) and that the United States is the key node in cooperation with UK, Canada, Italy and other countries. Furthermore, the most influential research team was found to be Columbia University (with 29 papers and 406 citations). The current research hotspots were classified into four clusters: narrative medicine education, consumer health information, health insurance and medical overuse. The function of education and the application of narrative medicine were identified as potential future research hotspots.Conclusion The current study suggested active cooperation among authors, institutions and countries. Among the four clusters, NM education are closely related with the other three clusters. Thus, more attention should be paid to the function of NM education.

Orchidaceae are one of the two largest families of flowering plants, new orchid genera are being described at a rate of about 13 per year. Bletilla sinensis is one of five species in the Bletilla. It has high medicinal value and can promote blood circulation and anti-inflammation. However, its phylogenetic status is controversial. In this study, the chloroplast genes of B. sinensis were sequenced and assembled, and download 73 complete chloroplast genes of orchid plants from NCBI to construct a molecular evolutionary tree, which provided new clues for the classification of B. sinensis. The results showed that the length of chloroplast genes was 156,941 bp, the GC content was 37.12%, and it contained 139 genes. The results of the molecular evolutionary tree show that the genus Bletilla is a single branch and has an independent evolutionary status. However, our sample is not in the same branch as the Bletilla, indicating that this sample may have an independent and effective taxonomic status. Based on the chloroplast genome structure and composition of this species, it also supports its independent taxonomic status from the Bletilla. Judging from the genetic distance between genera of Orchidaceae, the genetic distance between this sample and any other genera is greater than 0.02, which is greater than the genetic distance between the other two identified genera. In addition, the integration of morphological data from the Flora of China found that there are certain differences in morphology from other species of the genus Bletilla. Therefore, the above results suggest that this group should be a new genus of Orchidaceae.