Quiet Hour Stories

Telling stories about stories.

I want to tell you a story. This is a story about stories. As in any good story, we’re going to wander down a few storied paths. One of the paths leads back to 3 award-winning stories.* Remarkable stories by remarkable physicians who take seriously the power of stories—who have written powerful stories. Another path is about the importance of stories for human health and well-being from the per...

Micro Stories and Mega Stories

Technology, especially multimedia technology, is changing the way we tell stories. We are all familiar with letters, articles, and books, but new Internet technology has led to two novel forms of storytelling that we call micro stories and mega stories. Micro stories are the short bits of text and images that we use to tell our friends about our daily life, what we had for lunch, and the funny ...

Quiet healing.

Both physicians and patients want deeply healing doctor-patient relationships. Too often, though, the ever-expanding demands of medical practice combine with the defenses of the patient to create doctor-patient isolation. Eastern and Western cosmologies and traditions may encourage different approaches to human interaction and healing. At times, probing the patient with more questions may open ...

Quiet caring.

D URING A WALK ABOUT THE ONCOLOGY unit where I was receiving antibiotics for pneumonia, I encountered an elderly woman, her arm splinted and wrapped by a sling and burdened by intravenous and oxygen tubing. She was slowly and painfully making her way to the family lounge with her nurse and daughter. I helped them into the room, and then we all sat down. I asked her about her arm. She told me th...

Quiet Lasers