Creative Writing for Physicians

Recently in Canada, some physicians completing their professional development requirements engaged in a creative writing exercise, described here by participant Dr. Erica Weir. The goal of the activity was to refresh the doctors’ empathy for their patients. “Storytelling in this context,” Dr. Weir wrote, “exercises one’s moral imagination to suspend one’s own beliefs in order to empathize with another’s perspective.” Using a non-fictional case study, participants wrote imagined dialog, fictional medical transcripts, a patient-perspective journal entry, and poetry—with fascinating results. “Translating statistics into stories through continuing professional development exercises such as this creates touchstones for doctors to rest and reflect upon at the busy intersections where art and science meet,” Dr. Weir says. "By pausing and putting pen to paper to imagine a story from another’s perspective, we hold up a mirror that casts a refreshing reflection of not only what is, but also what should be.” Indeed, stories that transcend their artistic qualities and improve the human condition, physically and otherwise, are singularly admirable.

Storytelling that Heals

Hatsuo Yatsuo, right, presents a
picture-based story to children at a
gymnasium in Azuma Sports Park
in Fukushima on May 29. (Mainichi)

Back in May I mentioned a story about a Japanese man who was bringing a traditional form of storytelling to refugees of the March tsunami. His aim was to help them find healing in the humor of rakugo. Last week I saw this story about another refugee who lost his wife that terrible day. She used to perform for children a different form of Japanese storytelling called kamishibai, or storytelling with picture cards—something that reminds me of our Western flannel-board tales. He has taken up her mantle, gathering children around him to tell the stories she used to tell. What continues to impress me are the ways in which storytelling as a cultural form or as a deeply personal ritual has profound healing power. Perhaps the phenomenon is universal, and not only Japanese.

Rakugo for the Displaced

Storyteller Kyoraku is a storytelling celebrity in Japan. Rakugo is a traditional form of humorous storytelling. As the people of Japan reel from the devastating earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor failures, he uses the form to bring a bright spot to the refugees’ tedious days. “If you want to make people around you smile,” he says. “You have to start by smiling yourself.”

photo credit