Mini-Biographies Help Clinicians Connect With Patients

Bob Hall holds a photograph of himself playing with children in a village in Vietnam during his time as a Marine. Hall was one of the earliest patients to be interviewed for the My Life, My Story program. Now he is one of the program’s writers. Bram Sable-Smith for NPR

Bob Hall was recovering from yet another surgery in March 2014 when a volunteer walked into his hospital room. It had been a rocky recovery since his lung transplant three months earlier at the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin.

The volunteer wasn’t there to check on his lungs or breathing. Instead, she asked Hall if he wanted to tell his life story.