I often think about what the writer and patient Anatole Broyard said, “Stories are the antibodies against illness.” It’s hard enough that a diagnosis comes along to threaten our lives—does it also have to threaten our life stories?  

  “When I think of people in waiting rooms, including myself, I picture us rifling restlessly through battered magazines,” writes Rachel Hadas, Guest Editor of  “The Waiting Room Reader II:  Words to Keep You Company”.

To be a person is to have a story to tell.  —Isak Dinesen It’s hard enough that a diagnosis comes along to threaten our lives—does it also have to threaten our life stories?

And now we welcome the New Year. Full of things that have never been… -Rainer Maria Rilke With the coming of each New Year I think about what has passed, passing and to come. But today I find myself not reflecting on 2016. Instead,

  Tacked to my bulletin board within my line of sight are the words of Dr. William Osler,a 19th century physician who pioneered taking medical students out of the classroom to learn at the bedside. Dr. Osler understood that medicine was more than science. He encouraged the students to: