“The pain of a friend is itself a mountain waiting to be climbed…” ~ Jim Gustafson As I contemplate the words of my friend and poet, Jim Gustafson, I am drawn to the language of poetry to help me uncover how I survived the past week of challenges. One Problem ~ by Dr. Joel Ying, …Read More
Author: Dr. Joel Ying, MD
Physician-Educator-Storyteller. Integrating the power of story into medicine, healing sessions, workshops, speaking and performance.
Te Ata: Native American Storyteller
The role of the Storyteller goes beyond entertainment. The Storyteller holds the cultural wisdom of the people and keeps it alive for the next generation. Everyone can tell a story, but few are called to the role of Storyteller. Born in 1895 in Indian Territory, Mary Thompson Fisher grew up when Chickasaw children were not …Read More
Motivating lasting change: Fear vs. Efficacy
About 40 years ago, dentists in Connecticut ran an experiment.1 They wanted to know how to motivate people to brush and floss their teeth. They decided to try the well-known tactic–scare them into doing it. They randomized a large group of subjects into two groups. They gave one group an informational video of why and …Read More
Learning from College Jobs
In college, my financial aid package included work-study. There was a list of jobs on campus, and I ended up working in the dining hall. I don’t actually remember how this happened, but this was the “law of least effort.” There wasn’t an application process, just a box to check. There were about a thousand …Read More
Making your own Disney princess
“There was no Korean Disney princess so I decided to make my own,” says 22-year-old Korean American Harvard University student Julia Riew. She wrote “Shimcheong: A Folktale” — a full-length musical inspired by the Korean folktale, “The Blind Man’s Daughter” — as her senior thesis! Since releasing excerpts on TikTok in January 2022, she has …Read More
The Doctor ~ Luke Fildes
Medical education has long praised the advances in medical science. We cannot deny that scientific advances like antibiotics and new surgical techniques have saved lives. In fact, the first couple years of medical school in the United States focuses on anatomy, physiology, biology, pharmacology, and many other -ologies. In 1890, as medical science was advancing, …Read More
Creative Nonfiction ~ True Stories, Well Told
The banner of Creative Nonfiction defines the genre simply, succinctly, and accurately as “true stories, well told.” ~ CreativeNonfiction.org Stories can be told in many different media. In the literary tradition of the written word, we have books, short stories, essays, and more. As an oral storytelling performer, I craft stories that are meant to …Read More
Dreams ~ Paul Laurence Dunbar
“I am the Dunbar Jupiter Library. I am neither walls nor shelves that stand in rows. I am the Wisdom of the Universe, Captured, and arranged for you. I am an open door. ‘ENTER.’” — Mary L. Rice (1933 – 2022), first librarian of the Dunbar-Jupiter Hammon Public Library Today, I had the opportunity to …Read More
The Doctor Heals ~ Dr. Joel Ying
Sometimes you need to have a little fun with the poetry and the spoken word. Here are some musings that worked their way into a poem. With the spoken word, it leaps off the page and leaves me thinking… what was I thinking? …. Enjoy the poem. Listen to the audio clip if you prefer …Read More
What is prayer? ~ Mary Oliver
As Mary Oliver says in her poem, “I do not know exactly what prayer is.” What I do know is that when we pray, we invoke something greater than our current selves; we drop into a deep sense of gratitude for all that we already have; and we ask for the support that we need …Read More