you can't make this stuff up

Don’t let the term “narrative medicine” intimidate you. This is a broad and inclusive writing niche. You don’t have to be a physician or a health care provider to practice it. You don't have to be a nurse, an aide, or a therapist. In fact, you don't need to have direct contact with patients at all.

"Everybody has a story to tell."

~Joe Strummer~

Maybe you work in the hospital laundry, and one day, a half-smoked joint falls out of the pocket of a pair of surgical scrubs you're folding. Which bleary eyed surgeon did that come from? Or, imagine you’re a janitor called to fix a leaky faucet in the middle of the night. When you walk into the room, the patient is breathing quietly. Then you hear a groan and his breathing stops. Tell us about it.

Perhaps you've been a patient. Tell us what went through your mind the day you started having chest pain. What worried you about it? Why didn’t you go to the ER sooner? 

Maybe you can tell us what it was like to wait in the ER for hours before someone came to set your child's broken wrist. What did you see there? An angry drunk in handcuffs escorted by the police? Drops of blood drying on the floor? The surreptitious pinch the doctor gave the receptionist on her behind when he thought no one was looking? You have a story to tell.

What is it we like to say? You can’t make this stuff up.

"Everybody walks past

a thousand story ideas every day.

The good writers are the ones

who see five or six of them.

Most people don't see any."

~Orson Scott Card~

Now, let’s add another plot twist.

What if the surgeon who is scheduled to replace your aortic valve in the morning was up all night because that afternoon his son totaled the car on his way home from school? What about the ICU nurse who found the cigarette burn on the shirt her ten year-old wore to school yesterday? What about the single mother who works in food service with the dull ache in her low back and unpaid bills collecting on her kitchen counter? What do you think their stories are?

What is yours?

"Tell your story with your whole heart."

~Brene Brown~

jan