Patient Voices

Our collection of stories gathered from patients, carers, clinicians and service improvement people in the English National Health Service is growing rapidly. You can learn more about the Patient Voices programme, and see low resolution versions of some of the stories at www.patientvoices.org.uk

Here are just a few of the books that have informed our thinking (in addition to Joe’s book of course!):

What seems to be the Trouble? by Trish Greenhalgh – an argument for telling and listening to stories to get a different kind of picture of the patient’s experience http://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/publications/detail.asp?id=0&PRid=225

Medicine and Compassion by Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche with David R. Shlim, M.D. – Dr Shlim noticed that doctors seemed to become less compassionate after going through the boot camp of medical training. He learns from a Tibetan lama that it is possible to regain and retain the compassion that led many into the medical professions in the first placehttp://www.medicineandcompassion.com

The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down by Anne Fadiman is an extraordinary story of a Hmong refuge family, highlighting the crucial importance of communication in healthcare http://www.spiritcatchesyou.com/

 Life of Pi by Yann Martel – what a story – and what a storyteller!

 Looking forward to meeting you in Ukiah!

StoryCorps materials

Sarah Kramer of StoryCorps has suggested that it would be great if people checked out www.storycorps.net and, more specifically, the following links:

http://www.storycorps.net/about/
where people can learn about StoryCorps generally

http://www.storycorps.net/listen/
where people can listen to the actual pieces

http://www.storycorps.net/listen/index.php?s=sampler
where people can listen to our compilation cds

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4516989
where people can listen to the NPR broadcasts

*NOTE: much of the content of the above links is the same but I thought
it might be interesting to see the different ways the same audio is
showcased to the public and used in different ways to reach different
audiences.

Saving the Sierra

sts2pagerfinal.doc

Jesikah Ross has sent some information and a link about her new project, involving gathering stories of people who have been involved in conservation work in the Sierras.

 Here is the link: www.savingthesierra.org and a summary of her work is attached.

Public health frameworks

frameworks-ucb-article-draft4.doc 

Dick Jackson of UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health invites us to consider some of the issues raised by the epidemics of modern life that are threatening the health of our communities.

How might we use storytelling to promote and improve our health and preserve our world for those who will inhabit it after us?

Potential Blog Experience for The Gathering.

So here we are, with a potential space for our Gathering Blog site.  Many of us live in too many worlds to manage all these blogs, but at least there will be a shared home for whichever conversations need to be sustained.

I look forward to your feedback.

-joe