Two 55-Word Stories: Reasonable Suspicion and There's an Art to This.

Abstract

Description Narrative medicine, specifically the 55-word story, provides clinicians an opportunity to reflect on experiences they encounter and garner significant meaning from them. These 2 stories discuss difficult situations I have experienced in my practice of medicine. "Reasonable Suspicion" is an internal reflection on the weight of the complex decisions providers are often faced with (mandatory reporting, etc) and are not emphasized enough in health care. Doing the right thing in a clinical situation is taught. How doing the right thing can make a provider feel is not. "There's an Art to This" discusses grief. How do you grieve a patient? How do you help a colleague grieve their patient? These are questions providers often wrestle with. These are questions I struggled to answer during my time covering craniofacial trauma.