Welcome to the story side of medicine. Are you interested in helping to tell it? Here are some general tips on how. And don't forget to fill out our application.
Anamnesis is a podcast from MedPage Today where health professionals share stories reveling in the intangible lessons beyond EMRs and ICD codes. We honor and highlight the humanity and soul of caring for people -- patients and one another.
Each episode features three clinicians who share their stories around a particular theme.
The best prep is listening to our previous episodes!
Storytelling Content Tips
- Should be 10 minutes, please
- Please do not pontificate or advocate on pet issues. Let your story make the point
- Provide any little details you can think of (e.g., "The brain matter felt like pudding," "I dripped with sweat," "My fingertips were numb," etc.)
- Tell the story in order of time so listeners don't get lost (make sure the story has a beginning, middle, and end)
- Share your inner emotions and feelings (e.g., "I wanted to break out in a dance," "I felt my heart drop," "I felt abandoned," etc.)
- Think of a specific person you are telling the story to (i.e., imagine you're grabbing a drink with a friend -- "you won't believe what happened"; imagine you're in the break room with a colleague; etc.)
- Envision and describe the scene, the setting of where and when the incident took place, and what those included were doing specifically
- It's better not to write a full script in advance -- we suggest an outline if needed. Our reporter will walk you through your story and let you re-phrase or repeat until you think it comes out right
HIPAA
If you decide to include patients and their friends/family as characters, a good rule of thumb for preserving confidentiality is that your characters should not be able to recognize themselves in your story. Some ways to achieve this: don't include names or dates, consider changing key characteristics (e.g., if a hat or backpack was a key feature of your patient, make it a scarf or a necklace), and don't make diseases too recognizable (e.g., lymphangioleiomyomatosis should be changed to "lung disease"). Alternatively, you can obtain a patient's written permission to use HIPAA-protected information in your story.
For a quick review of this issue, check out this KevinMD article and this Harvard Medicine article.
Technical Recording Tips
There are two main ways we can record the audio:
- We can record your story and talk through it together on an interview over your computer. The reporter will record it using an online interview platform
- We can pre-interview you to discuss and select a story, and then you can record yourself when you're ready with your phone in a silent room
If you record:
- Please do NOT apply any filters, compression, or edits -- Our audio engineer will thank you for not messing with the file so he can have the best source material to work with!
- Pro-tip: For really great audio, get under a blanket when you record
Ready to Upload?
Send uncompressed MP3s or AIFF formats through our dedicated Hightail upload.
Any further questions, feel free to email us at anamnesis@medpagetoday.com.