UPDATE: See the Heroes of Geriatric Care Story Contest Rules and Submission Details HERE.
If anyone has seen ur-communications guru Andy Goodman in action, you know that he makes a strong case for the role of stories in social change. Stories are how humans share (and create wisdom). Stories are memorable. Stories draw on the heart as well as the mind. Stories motivate us to tackle tough problems and try to change the world.
I agree. While there are no silver bullets, I think if we could introduce a different story about care of older adults, we would be more than halfway toward improving their health and drawing others into our work.
Already, we have some useful mini-stories:
There’s the one about the old man with an aching knee who comes into the doctor’s office and complains that his knee hurts. The doctor takes one look at him (and his age) and says: “You’re old, what do you expect?” To which the man snaps back, “My other knee is just as old and it doesn’t hurt!” This story teaches us about the “fallacy of good reasons”—age alone is not always a sufficient reason for illness and health care needs to look beyond chronological age before it dismisses a problem (or a person).
There’s also the story the late Bob Butler—the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, gerontologist and founder of the Institute on Aging—used to tell: Confronted by health care professionals who routinely claimed that they were already expert in geriatric care “because so many of their patients were old,” Bob would reply that having old patients doesn’t make you a geriatrician, any more than the fact that every one of your patients has a heart makes you a cardiologist. There is a special body of expertise in geriatrics that you don’t just pick up casually.
Still, the conventional story is that providing care for older adults is a waste of time, hard, sad, underpaid, under (or un) appreciated. On Health AGEnda, we have documented part of the counter-stories—how bad care really hurts older adults and how important geriatrics expertise can be—but we need more stories. We need heroic stories! We need stories that tell of how a person with geriatric expertise can save the day when those without couldn’t get the job done. Where special knowledge and skill hard won in geriatric training programs make a difference in peoples’ lives.
I know that the American Geriatrics Society has tried to create a story bank with contributions from its members without much luck, but this time we have a secret weapon—we’re going to have a contest. With PRIZES!
Stay tuned for details on the John A. Hartford Foundation story contest. We are looking for stories that demonstrate the benefit of geriatric care expertise to the health and well-being of older adults and their families. Winning stories will appear here on Health AGEnda and may even be told to members of Congress.
Details, criteria, and rules for the contest will be posted on the Hartford Foundation website next week. So start thinking about the great story you want to tell. We’re looking for true stories that have beginnings, middles, and ends. Stories should have drama from complications and tribulations. Stories should be rich in specifics and reasonably detailed, but not assume technical knowledge.
For the purposes of our contest, modesty is definitely not a virtue—the ideal story is not afraid to laud the special contribution of the geriatric expert (nor to call out the failings of usual care). Stories can be delivered in any format: Written, audio, or video.
So check back next week for all the details. And to help you get the creative juices flowing, here are some helpful storytelling resources:
Storytelling as Best Practice by Andy Goodman; Video; Video; Transcript
The Art of Storytelling: Easy Steps to Presenting an Unforgetable Story by John Walsh
Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University
The Story Factor by Annette Simmons
The Power of Personal Storytelling by Jack Maquire
Leader’s Guide to Storytelling by Stephen Denning
Improving Your Storytelling by Doug Lipman