There are many reasons healthcare professionals write: to process trauma, build empathy, or simply because stories demand to be told. This week we’ve got a thought-provoking conversation with Dr. Carol Scott-Conner, a surgeon, poet, and editor of The Examined Life Journal; Katie Runde, a novelist exploring themes of love and loss; Jeff Goddard, an M3 medical student and soon-to-be-published author; and Linda Peng, a sci-fi writer and Bowman Prize-winning author. They discuss the challenges of writing about real patients while maintaining ethical boundaries, the impact of narrative medicine on medical education, and why residency often leaves little time for self-reflection even though that’s where it can be most helpful. Plus, they break down the blurred line between fiction and lived experience in writing and whether good storytelling requires personal experience. No matter why doctors, patients, and medical students write, it’s a powerful tool that can sooth some of healthcare’s most difficult problems where the participants’ humanity and the system come together.