Listening Skills
Today’s guest contributor is Maya J. Sorini, MS. Maya was a guest in the last Made Visible Writing Class and we’re working on launching something exciting together so be sure you’re subscribed to the general Made Visible newsletter to get notified. Maya graduated from and taught in Columbia University's Narrative Medicine Master's Program. Maya uses Narrative Medicine theory and practice to unify three key parts of herself: her experience with chronic illness, her work in trauma surgery clinical research, and her passion for reading and writing poetry. This summer Maya begins medical school at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine.
During my years in clinical research and working in Narrative Medicine, I have learned about the chasm between what a patient or family knows and what the clinician assumes they know. It is wide, often deep, and is made only deeper by the clinician’s inevitable ignorance to the patient's experience of living in their body. It seems like crossing this chasm is impossible, and I would argue that ever getting to the other side isn’t a reasonable goal. The goal instead is to build a bridge, build it by listening to one another, so that you may meet in the middle.
I learned this lesson in the hospital a dozen times, but one story stands out from the rest. I was working in the trauma surgery department when a patient came in with a gunshot wound to the belly. He needed surgery and had his spleen removed, among other procedures, and was sent to the ICU, where I met his wife.
She was crying, a step down from hysterical but clearly in shock over her situation. When she spoke to us, it was like listening to a hummingbird; her words came out so frenzied it was hard to follow what she said. I was tempted to do what I am sure the doctors and nurses had done when faced with her barrage of words: say, “I’m so sorry, I will keep you updated, I must be going.”
But I didn’t. Instead, I did what clinical researchers must do well: I stayed, I listened, I tried to hear not just what she was saying but what she could not say.
After a few minutes of listening to her move in and out of her surprise and grief, she turned her teary face to me and said, “They removed his spleen, and you know, can you live without that?”
Shocked now myself, I said to her, “Oh, yes, you can survive without a spleen, don’t worry. The spleen’s job can be done by the liver.”
Her eyes widened and in a sudden motion she threw her arms around me and sobbed into my scrubs. Nobody had told her this crucial detail, so obvious to all of us, that it is possible to live without a spleen. This question, buried in stories about her husband and children, had been a key to helping her understand her situation, a key to giving her hope in the face of her husband's long recovery.
I didn’t change that family’s experience because I was an expert. It was because I listened. I built the bridge. I heard her when others were unwilling to, and that made a difference.
Today’s Prompt (11): Write about a time someone really heard you.
Turn your phone on airplane mode and remove all distractions. Set a timer and write for 25 minutes. I encourage you to write in a notebook instead of on your computer or phone - don’t edit while you’re writing. When the timer goes off, if you have the time, space and interest to continue, go for it.
Happy writing!
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