Unleash the Power of Your Stories

Recording your daily work experiences can help you become a better caregiver

As a caregiver, sometimes you are so focused on treating your patients’ illnesses, you take little time to reflect on your own role in a patient’s total care. But recording the stories of your day can have a restorative effect, according to Andy Goodman.

A former television writer who spent three seasons writing and co-producing the ABC-TV show Dinosaurs (plus co-writing the pilot episode of The Nanny), Goodman is a nationally known communications consultant and trainer. He helps not-for-profit organizations, foundations, government agencies and educational institutions tell stories that produce a desired result.

Goodman recently shared his message about the importance of storytelling to doctors, nurses, social workers and other colleagues at LVHHN’s “Palliative Medicine: Action Behind the Words” symposium.

His advice: take time to capture the stories of your day and write them in a journal or record them on tape. Here are some examples:

• Tell how you helped a patient better understand how her medication works.
• Record the relief you heard in the voice of a World War II veteran when he related to you a story he kept secret for 50 years.
• Write down how you calmed the parents of a sickly newborn so they could understand and deal with the baby’s care.

“Taking time to reflect on your relationship with the patient and writing it down leads to greater job satisfaction, and ultimately better patient care,” Goodman says. “You feel uplifted at the end of your shift instead of frazzled.”

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