A gifted artist in his early 60s, the patient was a liver transplant candidate who learned he had hepatitis B some 20 years earlier. Despite the worsening fatigue that accompanied his liver failure, he threw himself into preparing for his transplant. He read everything he could about the procedure and the postoperative care, drilled doctors with endless questions and continued to drag himself to the gym each day in the hopes of being better prepared to withstand the rigors of the operation. He said. “You doctors have answered all of my questions, but what I really needed was to hear the stories about transplant from people like me.” Patients and doctors have long understood the power of telling and listening to personal narratives.
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