A simple rule of thumb for sharing your best medical anecdote.
As I noted in the
introduction, there are good reasons to share your stories as a health care provider. They're reasons having nothing to do with the clinical issues, and are as varied as the purposes of ancient myths: teaching a susila lesson; catharsis; entertainment; personal reflection; inspiring others; raising awareness for public debate; opening a "window" into the realities of medicine health care - the good and the bad; and others.
One thing that's not straightforward, though, is
how to share a story you're itching to tell. When people think of narrative medicine - and when
I'm still haunted by patients that were victims of violence or rape or incest. Their stories need to be told, though, because if they aren't the issues can't ever be addressed by health care or society as a whole. That being said, relating these sorts of stories can be distressing, even traumatic, for both teller and audience alike. It's something few of us are ever comfortable with, but the written word - including poetry - lets these stories and ideas see the light. It's essentially what
big-L literature is for.
The biggest downside to writing, of course, is that it's a craft in its own right. Most of us can relate a funny story competently (if not well), simply because we learn to repeat jokes or tattle from an early age. Health care professionals most often come from the sciences, so writing for non-technical purposes might be something unexplored since high school. I enjoy narrative writing, but it's not for everyone.
The other challenge with writing is the flipside of live storytelling: it's hard to be funny with the printed word, because so much of comedy - timing, facial expressions, comic voices - is nowhere to be found in text. Humor certainly
can work in writing, even if it's
tasteless. Still, books by the greatest comedians in the world, containing nothing but the cream of their stand-up material, can't hold a candle to their live acts, and sometimes even fall flat.
It's not hard to see where I'm going with this. My basic rule of thumb for a would-be doctor/storyteller is this: The more lighthearted and funny your story, the better it's likely to work if you tell it by mouth. The more tragic or upsetting the story, the more it belongs in print.
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