Writing Patient Stories

Dr. Mark Sloan held our attention rapt with tales of his patients while he artfully taught us how we can share similar stories of our own. Challenging us to use our deeply human experiences to connect with readers and teach, persuade, entertain along the way.

Defying our cries of “I am not a writer” he threw us in with prompts of his choosing. We wrote about our own experiences as patients and then shared patient stories from our practice to illustrate issues that we felt passionate about.

We scribbled furiously and clicked and clacked at keyboards. I think it is fair to say many of us were wildly uncomfortable.

When it came time to put down our pencils a few participants took turns sharing their stories. It was amazing to hear what had been woven together after just 15 minutes of writing. Touching pieces about hard diagnoses and unexpected interactions. Funny reflections around patient expectations. All with identifying information tastefully rearranged as we had been taught by Dr. Sloan.

We hope that each of the participants went home with a little more inspiration and confidence in sharing patients stories. We have grand visions of compiling some of them into a future MAPS publication, or possibly sharing a few here on our blog.

For those who participated if you would like to share your writing please send it to sonomamedicalarts@gmail.com

Most importantly, big thank you to Dr. Mark Sloan for sharing his time and wisdom with us. We can’t wait to read whatever he is writing next.