Health Story Type: Blog Post

El camino hacia la audición de Mariángeles

The link takes you to a website in Spanish that gives detailed information about cochlear implants. One section labeled "Historias de Usuarios" has several stories from people who have successful experiences with the devices. One example: Mariángeles, an Argentinian woman, feels "reborn" after cochlear implant surgery and returns to study at the university. She says that now that she has her “ears” and her son is an adult, she can fully focus on herself again.

Bastian y su padre, unidos por el Implante Coclear

This interview of a father with a son who has a cochlear implant is posted on the website of a company that makes hearing assistance devices. It is one of many brief stories (300-700 words) about deafness and hearing assistance devices on the website. In this one, the father was asked about his tattoo of a cochlear implant on his head and said that this was a way to connect with his son. This interview shows that many people with hearing loss can feel isolated from the rest of the world. Hearing people can gain understanding of the emotional benefits of cochlear implants.

Historia de una cicatriz

Melania Mosteiro is a Spanish life coach who bases her perspective and approach in her experience of having been born with a minor deformity that makes her face appear slightly crooked. She was very ashamed of this deformity and when she was 17 years old, she underwent an operation to correct it. The operation didn't change much, but as she waited for the next operation, her point of view changed. She realized that her scars are a part of her, and she was finally satisfied with her appearance. 8 minute read; upper intermediate Spanish readers. Useful to discuss body image.

Reflective MedEd

The "About" section of this blog explains its purpose as follows: "Reflective MedEd is dedicated to reflective practice in medical education and care of the person. We publish contributions that offer insight and illumination into the experience of educating the next generation of physicians. We welcome the thoughts of educators, patients, and all who foster awareness of the human dimension of doctoring and develop advocates for the just and equitable treatment of all patients." Especially welcome are submissions that address "social justice and a concern for marginalized and vulnerable populations, the role of faith in medical practice, and ethical standards of decision making." Reflective MedEd is supported by the Ralph P. Leischner, Jr., MD, Department of Medical Education at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Blog posts include both personal narratives and reflective essays from a variety of experiences and perspectives. For example: "How COVID Impacted my First Patient and Patient Death Experience," "What I have Learned About Trust from Black Women," and "The Wolf: How skeptical should we be of our patients?"

As a physician, why write?

This is the first post in a new blog on U Mass Med School Medical Humanities Lab, 2019. It is an articulation of why all physicians are storytellers and why most would do well to write them down. This could be beneficial for medical students to reflect upon in order to show the importance of health narratives to new physicians.

It’s the ‘life’ in end-of-life that matters

Prompted by Atul Gawande's New Yorker essay ("Letting Go," which addresses similar themes as his book, Being Mortal), the author reflects on two experiences he had as a resident in the NICU, one in which all possible medical treatment was pursued inappropriately and another in which extra-ordinary measures were not applied so that a family could spend a final day with a fatally ill newborn. The author blames the broader medical system, and says his frustrations with that system led him to his current occupation as a health services researcher. In contrast to end-of-life stories that involve elderly patients or terminally ill adults, this blog post provides vivid examples of NICU treatment decision-making.

Speaking of Addiction

Dr. Meaghan Ruddy speaks on the importance of the language that health care providers choose to talk about drug addicts, specifically opioid addicts. She shares her story of when she critiqued the label "drug-seekers" in an emergency department that had many such cases. Dr. Ruddy then calls for a focus on destigmatization for drug addiction in future generations of medical professionals. Relevant to pre-med, medical students.

Tourette Syndrome: The biomedical and the literary.

The blog "According to the Arts" is written for the general public. The posts juxtapose a medical description of an illness or disability, in this case Tourette Syndrome, with a novel in which one of the main characters exhibits the condition. The novel captures the signs and symptoms, and describes how Tourette syndrome can affect lives of people living with Tourette and of living with someone who has it. The biomedical text from a neurology journal describes the characteristic tics and behaviors. Comparing the story to the medical account shows the science vs humanities perspectives on illness and could be useful for undergraduate classes in health humanities, especially ones focused on writing. Also useful for health professions students and professionals to emphasize the human factors often missed in clinical encounters.

Intoxicated by My Illness, and Other Writings on Life and Death

The link is a review by J. Russell Teagarden of a book by Anatole Broyard, who died of prostate cancer but used his illness as a way to reflect on literature and illness (and literature and medicine). Teagarden explains that the book is "a collection of writings concerning illness and death, mostly his, and in particular, the metastatic prostate cancer that took [Broyard's] life at age seventy." The book is not a chronology of Broyard's illness but, instead, a collection of his New York Times articles, his notes and early drafts of writings, and a talk he gave at the University of Chicago medical school. Two subjects in particular might be used in a class. One is an approach to thinking about terminal illness. As Teagarden explains, "The book begins with the first of many counterintuitive notions Broyard offers when he refers to being intoxicated by his illness. With the diagnosis, he 'is filled with desire—to live, to write, to do everything. Desire itself is a kind of immortality.' (p. 4) Broyard is not just intoxicated by his illness; 'I’m infatuated with my cancer.' He is not doomed as much as he is freed; 'I can afford now, I said to myself, to draw conclusions.' (pp. 6-7). Likewise, the idea of meeting death with style is a theme across the book. The book also addresses the relationship between literature and illness; as Teagarden states, "he considers the literature of illness, the literature for illness, and the literature of death." The book includes passages in which Broyard tells the story of his illness, and the story of his father's illness (both died of prostate cancer).

The ART of infertility

This is the link to a website for a national arts organization based in Michigan and Wisconsin. The organization curate art exhibits that portray living with infertility, designes curricula and writing worksins, plans outreach events, and advocates for infertility rights. They dsribe their missions as follows: "Through art, we break the silence around reproductive grief and push back against common misconceptions. We invite you to join us in our fight to make infertility visible." The site includes galleries of exhibitions, including photos with artist statements and a blog that features personal narratives about the experiences of infertility.