Storyteller Interview Series Dr. Anthony Williams
Medical schools are embracing storytelling as a core skill. From electives to Story Slams, they are helping create community, teach med students how to better engage with patients, and cultivate resilience.
I reached out to Dr. Williams after reading one of his stories online. One of his many roles is as an Assistant Director of the Center for the Art of Medicine at the University of Minnesota. We spoke a year ago and I’ve thought of his interview at least once a week for the last year. Here are some of the snippets from that interview.
Dr. Anthony Williams
Physician, Assistant Director of Center for the Art of Medicine, University of Minnesota
Associate Program Director, Med-Peds Residency Program, Health Partners Med-Peds Hospitalist
How does the University of Minnesota Medical School incorporate storytelling?
The Center For the Art of Medicine cultivates curiosity and creative expression in medical education and practice. It also promotes arts and humanities to help physicians and physicians-in-training be more resilient throughout their practice. Arts and humanities are not separate from science and scientific reasoning.
Stories connect us like few other things can. You tell a narrative or an emotionally charged story and we’re all there with you. Storytelling combats burnout and isolation by creating community. We do a very tough and draining job. It’s challenging as a medical student. It gets more challenging as a resident and sometimes even more when you are done. It is easy to feel isolated.
The process of creating and sharing stories in the storytelling events and the Story Slams helps people feel connected to the practice of medicine. It makes you feel not alone and gives you hope. I didn’t even know that was something I was missing until I went to the Story Slams. You feel emotions and all these things that are buried and don’t have time or wherewithal to face during the day. These all come up when you hear the stories. We have lots of Kleenex there. Even some of the happy stories can be bittersweet.
Our industry has historically been locked down and not really open to admitting weakness, vulnerability, or mental health issues. That is the dark side of the hero rhetoric around “Healthcare workers are heroes.” It can have the connotation of no weakness. We are people, have families, and have lives outside of medicine. We break and experience trauma and mental health issues. If we don’t talk about it, share stories, or don’t feel a sense of community, then we burn out, commit suicide, and have a lot of other issues.
How do you teach storytelling and create a community for stories to be shared?
Story slams create a community for sharing stories. We have other smaller venues like storytelling collaboratives. People can write and discuss short stories that they read. Then we have classes we run for medical students and that we run informally for residents just to try to help people get started with storytelling. I have a lot of people who say, “I’m not a writer. Other than medical schoolbooks, I don’t really read.” It’s intimidating for people.
We tell them, “You have stories. We all have stories. You all have a perspective that is different than the person beside you. All we have to do is figure out how to get it out of you and onto the paper.”
When we have a nervous person, one of the first things we do is use a sensory grid to help people get started writing. We have the medical students think of a situation they want to write about. It can be happy, sad, emotionally charged, or mundane. Then on these grids, you have prompts like, “What were the sights you’ve seen? The sounds? Who did was there?”
They aren’t constructing a story; they’re just writing out lists with this grid. Then we tell them, “Your goal is to write a story that is exactly 55 words using your sensory grid about the sights and sounds.” They really like that target. They’re on their way to constructing a written story they thought was impossible when they first started. We are trying to get them started with what the brain does naturally.
Tell me about using stories in practice and to relate to patients.
Patient encounters are framed around narrative and soft skills. A lot of patients tell you how they think by the way they present their challenges as stories. I change the clothing that my recommendations wear based on the type of stories I am getting from the patient. Stories are threaded all through the reception of patients, what’s going on with them, and giving back recommendations and talking them through rational, reasoning.
What advice do you give to people trying to get into storytelling?
I tell people. “Tell yourself whatever you need to get yourself writing or storytelling.” I used to tell myself, “What I am writing will never see the light of day.” That allows me to start that process and give myself the freedom to create that dumpster fire that is the draft. The point of this is not to create the next great literary work. It’s to get used to the process of putting words on paper or telling stories in a completely safe space.
I also say read stories and listen to stories. Start paying attention to the stories in the world., whether it’s podcasts or short stories. It will inevitably help you when you feel like you want to try to tell your own story.
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