Photo credit: Kyle Ericksen
Donna Bulseco is the editor-in-chief of the journal of narrative medicine Intima and a longtime journalist and editor. She has graduate degrees in English literature from Brown University and narrative medicine from Columbia University. She is an editor and contributor to publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Self, InStyle, the Purist, and others.
Q: Where It Hurts is split up into eight sections that each grapple with a different theme. Was there a specific section you felt yourself particularly drawn to while editing? If so, why?
Donna Bulseco: Each section centers on an emotion—self-doubt, love and hate, shame and anger, confusion, loneliness and loss, fear and panic, feeling mortal, and curiosity and tenderness. While editing, I found that the work in the loneliness and loss section affected me deeply. Being an editor is a solitary pursuit, and I could relate to being “Invisible,” the way the doctor narrator feels in that essay, or in the short story “Late,” where an OB-GYN intern sits with patients late at night to spell their loved ones for a few hours.
I always ugly cry whenever I read pediatrician Cara Haberman’s “Being Seen,” about a simple act of kindness she receives leaving “Princess Parking” after a punishing day in the hospital.
Everyone can relate to these emotions—feeling lonely but then being thankful to receive acknowledgment, even from a stranger.
Q: How did you decide upon the order and groupings of the essays? Did patterns emerge early on, or did they fall into place over time?
DB: Deciding on the order of the narratives was like mental juggling.
The ideas of using emotions as an organizing idea helped—emotions are relatable. Even accomplished people like doctors, nurses, and therapists can feel self-doubt at work or feel confused, ashamed, or angry—or feel love or curiosity while doing a job.
I considered what emotion I felt as a reader when reading a piece. I’m not a clinician, but as a lover of words, I really believe in the power of words to change the way we think or act or feel. With my editor at The Experiment, Sara Zatopek, we thought about how a reader might not want to end on “feeling mortal.” Sara came up with “curiosity and tenderness” as the emotions for the last chapter, called “The Wonder Years.” I loved that idea!
Q: You’re the editor-in-chief at Intima, a journal of narrative medicine. How did your work with Intima inform your process when editing Where It Hurts?
DB: Let’s just say I’ve read a lot of work—not only as editor at Intima but as a longtime newspaper and magazine writer and editor. I know a good story when I read it! That sounds like I’m bragging, but I do feel like I’ve developed a strong sense of what’s worth your time to read.
My moment of self-doubt while editing this anthology came when I had to read the book from start to finish during the final edits. Will it be a good read? I asked myself. Happy to report, I promise you, it is.
Q: What exactly is narrative medicine?
DB: Simply put, narrative medicine uses great works of literature and art to teach doctors, nurses, patients, caregivers, and essential workers how to read, listen, interpret, and respond to stories about health and illness. It’s a disciplined way to listen to a story and glean key information from it, whether used as a diagnostic tool in an examining room or as a form of self-reflection.
Q: Why is this genre important within both the cultural spheres of literature and medicine?
DB: Narrative medicine has become a literary genre, although literary work about medicine and by clinicians didn’t originate with it. William Carlos Williams, Anton Chekov, Abraham Verghese, Paul Kalanithi, Atul Gawande, Rana Awdish, and Daniele Ofri are all doctors who have written original narratives that have changed the culture of medicine and literature.
Q: Where It Hurts features both poetry and prose. Did you find it necessary to take a different approach when editing each of these styles?
DB: The only approach I take when editing is to honor a writer’s writerly voice and honor the reader’s time. Anything that I feel confused about when I read it needs careful clarification—and that’s important so readers “get it” as they read. There shouldn’t be a struggle when reading great writing.
Q: The COVID-19 pandemic brought to light many of the invisible hardships of working in healthcare. What do you hope audiences will take away from reading about the myriad difficulties and heartbreak that our healthcare workers face daily?
DB: We all hold emotional scars from the pandemic. Healthcare professionals faced the challenges—and the fear and panic that came with those challenges—head on. At Intima, we were shocked back then at the work flooding in for our Spring 2020 issue—highly creative, scarily fresh “dispatches from the emotional frontlines of medicine,” and these pieces were exceptional. Being able to honestly talk about the crisis led to brilliant essays, poems, and short stories.
Case in point: Rana Awdish’s essay, “The Shape of the Shore.” The New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks honored it in December of 2020 with the Sidney Award, given annually by Brooks for outstanding long-form essays.
Q: Why is it so important, especially today, to recognize and read about these often invisible, under-thanked jobs?
DB: It’s important because what doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals think, feel, and experience is highly relatable to everyone and provides meaning about how we see the world and ourselves. Reading how others react or reflect deepens our own experience.
Q: Do you think that this kind of storytelling could have a tangible impact on some of the strained or broken parts of our larger healthcare system?
DB: That’s the hardest question to answer. I would ask anyone who has the power to change or impact our healthcare system to please read “Red Line Rising” by Michael Brown (in Chapter 3 – The Sound and the Furies: Shame and Anger). And take action.
Where It Hurts is out March 24. Find it everywhere books are sold.
