Feeling Seen: When Doctors Read—and Write—Their Own Stories

I’m currently reading How Do You Feel? One Doctor’s Search for Humanity by Jessi Gold, MD, MS.  I bought it a while ago, and it’s been sitting on my shelf.  I can’t say why I was pulled to read it right now: I’m not burned out, and I’ve been feeling my humanity quite acutely for the past few weeks.  I probably just wanted to keep my current reading streak going, and it seemed like it wouldn’t take much work to read.  Because that’s where I am, I suppose: my “light reading” includes the words “search for humanity.”  

She’s a psychiatrist whose practice is comprised of college students and medical professionals, and her story starts right after the COVID-19 pandemic swept the country.  Deemed “nonessential” (shorthand for “doesn’t have to be in the hospital being exposed to, and exposing others to, COVID-19”), she wrestles with practicing medicine from behind the relative safety of her computer screen while carrying the weight of her patients’ stories: the resident with OCD uncovered by working in a pandemic, the pregnant oncology nurse “redeployed” to care for critically ill patients in an ICU, the EM physician who never allowed herself to cry because once, after crying in training, she was told something along the lines of, “Go home and yell at your family, kick your dog, or drink yourself to sleep, just come back ready to work tomorrow and never do that again.”  While I’m starting to cringe at the saying, “I feel so seen,” I have to be honest: I feel so seen.

There are lots of books written by physicians out there: When Breath Becomes Air (gutted me), This Is Going to Hurt (made me wince), All That Moves Us (gutted me at times, uplifted me more often), Every Deep-Drawn Breath (made me think, “Maybe I have a story to tell too?”), In Shock (made me think, “There’s no way the story I’d tell is this compelling.”)  These authors have long CVs and contribute to the medical literature readily, but there was something in them that made them shift and try writing something else.  What was it?

Rita Charon, MD, PhD, is a general internist and literary scholar who coined the term “narrative medicine.”  With her MD from Harvard and her PhD in English from Columbia, she is undoubtedly well-suited to bring together two worlds that (on the surface) seem so disparate: medicine and storytelling.  According to Dr. Charon, narrative medicine is “a commitment to understanding patients' lives, caring for the caregivers, and giving voice to the suffering.”  I am not a scholar in narrative medicine, but I imagine the practice must have started with focusing on the stories of patients.  It wasn’t that long ago that physicians were viewed as stoic, unfeeling pillars of rationality and science, so the idea that we may be suffering and have stories to tell probably came after narrative medicine had centered on those we cared for, those whose suffering was so often plainly visible.  

But as more clinicians—especially those on the frontlines during the pandemic—began sharing their own narratives, it became clear: we, too, are full of stories that deserve attention. Not for catharsis alone, but for connection. For meaning-making. For survival.

At its core, narrative medicine is about honoring those stories. It's a framework for practicing medicine with narrative competence—the ability to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved by the stories of illness. It's about understanding that health and healing aren't just a collection of lab values or imaging reports but a mosaic of lived experiences.

It asks us to slow down and listen not only to the chief complaint but also to the subtext. To ask not just, “What’s the matter?” but also, “What matters to you?”

And it's not just about the patient. Narrative medicine offers a space for clinicians to reflect on their own experiences, to name the griefs we carry, the ambivalence we feel, and the joy that occasionally pierces through the fog. It's a counterbalance to the relentless productivity and performance metrics that often govern our professional lives. It can be an antidote to burnout—not because it fixes anything but because it helps us make sense of it.

This is why I keep gravitating toward physician-authored books, even when I tell myself I need a break. They are not escapes. They’re mirrors.

Reading Dr. Gold, I am reminded that we do not have to be literary scholars or Pulitzer finalists to tell a story that matters (though her writing is enjoyable and engaging, so maybe she’ll have those titles soon). We just have to be honest. We just have to pay attention. Narrative medicine is not reserved for a rarefied few; it is something we all practice, sometimes unknowingly, in the quiet moments between tasks, in the aching silences of a family meeting, in the mental replay of a shift that didn’t go how we wanted it to.

We are all carrying stories. The bravest thing we can do is tell them.

If you're feeling the weight of stories—your patients’, your colleagues’, your own—consider this your invitation to write one down. Not for publication. Not for perfection. Just to remember. Just to be witnessed. Start with a moment that stuck. A sentence you can’t forget. A shift that changed you. You don’t have to be a writer to tell a true story. You just have to begin.