Borrowed from First Person Arts dot org
I was once reprimanded by the daughter of a patient, who called me after our visit with her father. I had casually remarked “What a fascinating story!” in response to a long, involved recounting of his illness, his travels, his experiences with other healthcare providers, ending with his visit to my office. I had thought this was a kind reflection of his efforts to stay healthy.
Instead, his daughter informed me later, My Dad thinks that you don’t believe him when he tells you things.
It gave me great pause. The word “story,” to my patient, implied that his narrative was fabricated.
I never used that word in the exam-room again.
This is my personal interaction with storytelling in healthcare. The words “story” and “storytelling” are heavily laden with history and meaning, sometimes unintended. Many, perhaps most scientists I know and respect, stick to presenting the facts, devoid of story, for precisely this reason: you can’t argue with facts, and stories are the realm of fiction and politics and dreamers, with “no place in science.”
I’m coming around to the idea that this is not only untrue, it is harming science.
We, as scientists, physicians, informaticians, MUST accompany our science and facts with stories. Our world revolves around stories. My current favorite quote by Muriel Ruykeyser:
The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
I’ve been devouring books and online treatises on this topic. More on this in BLOG 2 of STORYTELLING IN SCIENCE next week.
I’m gratified that the public conversation on electronic (and also paper) medical records continues. Its a dry topic, but oh so important. Ms. Sanger-Katz writes about Casey Quinlan (and her QR code!), and the difficulty of assembling a longitudinal health record that becomes more important as we get older. The morass of privacy, mistrust, bureaucracy, swiss-cheese implementation of EHR (electronic health records) with few electronic connections, throw numerous barriers into this journey. 
Well, I’m not sure what to think. I read this because of my book club, where we read Juan Thompson’s book “Stories I tell Myself”. He’s Hunter’s son, and writes well in his own right (and, works in Healthcare IT in Denver!). Moreover, this was an opportunity for me to read some literature of the Gonzo generation that I never got around to. Juan mentioned the lyricism of Hunter’s description of being on motorcycle barreling down Pacific Coast Highway at midnight. This prompted me to pull Hell’s Angels off my wife’s bookshelf, and then I was hooked.
