Storytelling is not only an inspiring but also a great knowledge sharing tool.
Here is one of my favourite story from the Healthcare Environment
*Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, 1990’s. A nurse has been watching a newborn for several hours. Suddenly, the baby turns dark blue, almost black. The medical team immediately calls for a doctor and a radiologist and prepare to intervene, convinced that it is a pulmonary collapse – a wide-spread problem for babies placed under artificial respiration – and where a hole has to be made into the chest, in order to insert a tube and suck out the air in order to allow the lungs to fill up again.
But the nurse is convinced that it’s a heart problem. As soon as she saw the baby’s color, she’s suspected that he was suffering a pneumopericardium: air filling the pocket around the heart and stopping it from beating. She therefore tries to stop her colleagues’ preparations screaming “It’s the heart!”. But her colleagues point at the heart monitor showing that the baby’s heart is beating normally. She insists, pushes their hands away and orders them to be quiet placing a stethoscope on the child’s chest.
Not a sound. The heart is not beating.
A neonatal surgeon enters the room and the nurse immediately hands him a syringe. “Pneumopericardium. Prick the heart.” The radiologist, who has just received the test results, confirms the nurse’s diagnostic. The surgeon inserts the syringe into the heart and slowly releases the air pocket preventing it from beating. The baby is safe.
Later, the team understood why the monitor had misled them: it was measuring the electrical activity commanding the heart beats, and this had not stopped: the heart was simply unable to respond to it because of the air pocket pressure.
Medically, the story above teaches important lessons. It instructs people in how to spot and treat the specific condition Pneumopericardium
These medical lessons may not seem useful to non medical staff. But the story is inspiring to everyone. It’s a story about a woman who stuck to her guns, despite implicit pressure to conform to the group’s opinion.
*Source : Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath
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"I attended your story telling course some time back. And I've enjoyed keeping up my knowledge with your blog. You may not have realised however, that the Whole of Government is implementing Internet Seperation. Hence I'm not able to access the links to read your articles. Could I suggest including a QR code in your emails so that I can use my mobile to scan it and gain immediate access to the article? It would be most helpful"
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