Clinicians face daily trials and triumphs in providing health care in their communities. Join us for a lively program of readings as we talk about the rewards of storytelling and how the discipline of narrative medicine supports enhanced empathy in the clinical encounter.
For our inaugural spring seminar session we will be joined by Donna Bulseco to discuss the new collection, Where It Hurts: Dispatches from the Emotional Frontlines of Medicine (2026). As part of a moderated discussion, Donna will share insights about the process of bringing these pieces from the digital space into physical print. Contributors will read work from this debut anthology and engage in dialogue about the importance of reflective writing practices, representation of the voices in healthcare, and the opportunities present in engaging with the experiences of others through literature. Bruce Campbell, Rachel Kowalsky, Trisha Paul, Angelica Recierdo, Priscilla Mainardi and Eve Makoff will be reading work from Where It Hurts.
Where It Hurts offers a glimpse into the daily realities of those charged with taking care of us at our most vulnerable. In raw and revealing essays, stories, and poems, from doctors, nurses, EMTs, therapists, and more, we hear what it’s like to deal with difficult patients, life-changing diagnoses, private doubts, painful failures, and the victories that keep them going.
Speaker: Donna Bulseco, (M.S '14), editor of Where It Hurts: Dispatches from the Emotional Frontlines of Medicine (2026) and Editor-in-Chief of Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine.
Moderator: Mario de la Cruz, (M.S.'12), Lecturer; School of Professional Studies and Associate Director, CUIMC Division of Narrative Medicine.
Praise from the book has come from both the literary and medical worlds:
"Where It Hurts cuts to the core of what it means to be a clinician today."—Sneha Mantri, MD, (M.S. '11) director of medical humanities at Duke University School of Medicine
"The honest, heartbreaking, and uplifting voices of doctors and nurses, EMTs and medical students not only bring us behind the scenes of surgeries and intubations and autopsies, but also let us into their hearts and minds, inviting us to bear witness to everything from the giggle of a pole dancing neurologist to the wailing of a mother who learns her baby has no heartbeat. This book will continue to echo long after you finish it."― Ann Hood, bestselling author of The Knitting Circle and Comfort: A Journey Through Grief
"For far too long clinicians have been trained to believe that our worries, doubts, griefs, and even our joys are somehow different from those of our patients, that these feelings should be hidden, or even that they don’t exist. This glorious collection explores the full range of emotions caregivers experience from early career through retirement. Clinicians and patients alike will return to this book again and again to be reminded of our common humanity." ― Suzanne Koven MD, MFA, author of Letter to a Young Female Physician
"Doctors and nurses are people too―multi-layered, mysterious human beings with complex emotional reactions to the care they provide and the patients they encounter. Ranging panoramically in perspective and tone―from the haunting experiences of adolescent psychiatric nurse Jennifer Anderson in “Managed Care,” to family physician Joanne Wilkinson’s confrontation with her own powerlessness to help a woman with advanced Alzheimer’s in “Invisible,” to infectious-disease doctor Ben Goldenberg’s charming paean to hospital gift shops, “For the Old Man Buying a Stuffed Giraffe”―this collection offers readers grand works of literature in miniature. Each piece is a perfect morsel of perception: a window into the soul of a caregiver and a mirror for the reader’s reflection. A testament to the power of narrative medicine, Where It Hurts belongs on every healer’s nightstand." ― Jacob M. Appel, MD, author of Who Says You’re Dead?