Recently, I was skimming through On Wisconsin, the alumni magazine from my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to articles about noteworthy alumni, there are often stories about professors and students conducting innovating research projects on the Madison campus. One such article, “Story Time”, detailed a unique storytelling project involving UW students and military veterans at a Madison-area Veterans Administration (VA) hospital. The project, called “My Life, My Story“, was initiated in 2013 by a UW School of Medicine and Public Health psychiatry resident and has since been adopted by six other VA facilities across the country. The program gives veterans an opportunity to tell their stories about what they have gone through in military and civilian life. A volunteer, usually a medical or literature student, acts as an interviewer and writes a 1000-word story. This personal testomony enables a health care provider, such as a VA doctor or nurse, to better understand the background of a patient. The article gives some enlightening examples of patients telling their stories and students commenting on the significance of the project.
It’s a remarkable how storytelling can help people discuss about the adversity they have encountered in their lives. In cases such as this, it enables medical professionals to look at something other than a chart to get a better picture of a patient’s history. Especially if a patient has put his or her life in harm’s way.