If you prefer, you can also listen to Laura read the following blog: 

I believe in stories more than anything else. I believe that stories have the power to connect people, and sculpt the very essence of one’s being. Perhaps this belief lives in my heart because I was born the granddaughter of a storyteller. Every night, my grandmother would lie down next to me, hug me tight and whisper stories until I fell asleep. She would never tell the same story twice, yet at the core of all her tales was a fearless, lively and courageous leader full of style. As I grew a little older, I remember wondering, “where did ´nana´ get so many stories?” That’s when I discovered that the beloved main character I admired so much was none other than my very own grandmother. Every night, she had told me about her life’s stories: as a student at boarding school, as a teenager at parties, and as a teacher of a convent many years later. She had shared with me the fears, aspirations, and principles that made her the human being that I look up to.

As I moved into the realm of medicine, I longed to discover a space where my colleagues and I could dive into the vulnerabilities, sorrows and moments of joy inherent in our collective journey of caring for others. The way I see it, the journey of all health care workers, beyond the skills and science, is a road towards love. As I joined CPSolvers, I knew I was closer to finding, and — serendipitously even– creating, that space. 

I teamed up with Maddy, a sparkly-eyed, sweet-smile, and sharp-thinking medical student from New York, to create a narrative space inside CPSolvers: a series on “Telling Our Stories”. For our first session, Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a proud Greek and pulmonary and critical care physician, talked about “Patient Encounter Pearls”. His tweets constantly feature the following advice: “Invest in people. And get them coffee!”, which probably tells you more about him than anything else. He emphasized the importance of fostering community engagement, and building a sense of “homophily” – a tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others as  “birds of a feather that flock together”.  By the end of the meeting, we were all crying and laughing at the same time as testament to Dr G.’s storytelling – blending deep truths along with terrible “dad jokes”. Facilitating this session made me realize what a challenge it was to share my reflections with people from all over the world. While the story was thought-provoking, all of my thoughts were in Portuguese, and all my stories were nested at home with my grandmother. 

For our second session, I asked our guest to tell us about her story before the meeting so I could prepare – and translate – ideas to delve deeper into. We invited Dr. Michelle Kittleson, one of the most up-lifting spiritsI have ever met. She is a cardiologist, Heart Failure and Transplantation specialist and the creator of #KittlesonRules on Twitter. She brought a story about patient’s trust in times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her story addressed a time of crisis, in which the lack of information and society’s political inclination drastically influenced the patients’ decisions. In her story, even though the doctor-patient relationship had been established years before the pandemic, ties were strained in the face of despair. Through her narrative, she portrayed the essence of shared-decision making and emphasized the relevance of demonstrating that patients “are the masters of their own body, while we are just the medical consultants”. As I listened to her story, I thought about my own country. It wasn’t difficult to identify with the calamity of trust in healthcare workers that the pandemic and political polarization had brought. In Portuguese, we use the expression “agradar a Gregos e Troianos (to please Greeks and Trojans)” – to describe the challenge of being able to connect with everyone regardless of their backgrounds or beliefs – to describe the role of the doctor in the context of fear and uncertainties. 

Uncertainty, such as the one experienced during the pandemic, often reveals hidden reservoirs of resiliency unknown even to ourselves. Dr. Swaiman Singh, confronted such despair with hope and empathy. He is a person that fills the room with serenity and uprightness, a humanitarian, cardiologist, and founder of The 5 Rivers Heart Association in India. For the next session, Dr. Singh told us a beautiful story filled with universal emotions, such as altruism and belonging. Courageously, he left his fellowship and his family in the US to provide health care to more than forty thousand struggling farmers that were protesting in India. After some time, he returned to the US and was welcomed into a leading cardiology center to complete his fellowship. Many of the opportunities that followed were the result of the inspiration that his remarkable story sparked in the hearts of others. His story reignited the motivation behind why I wanted to become a doctor in the first place. Connecting to someone else’s plight in such a strong way that you would be willing to change your own path to help others– this is what I dream of. This is what I believe in.

Now as I moved more and more into the humanities, I suddenly missed the science. I had a feeling that the CPSolvers community would connect more with the conversations if we included clinical reasoning throughout the sessions. Our next storyteller was Dr. Aisha Rehman – a brave, thoughtful, and generous physician from Pakistan. I have never seen Dr. Rehman’s face, but her low voice radiates respect and kindness. For that session, I equipped myself with what brings me comfort: I created a MedEd infographic to provide an overview of Wilson’s disease for the audience. Meanwhile, Dr. Rehman raised concerns about the lack of access to opioids due to bureaucratic hurdles. In doing so, she exemplified the frequent limitations physicians encounter in striving to help others. Limitations that carve us into strong, resilient and courageous beings. 

Each and every single person who shared their story became my role model and their journey became the deep, powerful connection with humanity that I’ve always sought out for. As a narrative being, what began with the cherished tales from my beloved grandmother later evolved into the perspective through which I perceive the world. These stories afford me the opportunity to reflect and contemplate on experiences that even if I may not have lived through allow me to steer my own journey into a pursuit of dignity and courage. That’s the power of storytelling.