From Hardship to Healing with Laurel Braitman
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What is the premise of Laurel Braitman's memoir *What Looks Like Bravery*?
Support for the nocturnist comes from the California Medical Association.
At the Nocturneist, we are careful to ensure that all stories comply with healthcare privacy laws. Details may have been changed to ensure patient confidentiality. All views expressed are those of the person speaking and not their employer.
You're listening to the Nocturneist Conversations. I'm Emily Silverman. Often we underestimate how a career in medicine impacts not just us, but the people in our lives, our parents, our children, our partners, even our friends. Whether our careers inspire others or create blockages in our personal lives or sometimes a mix of the two, the rigors of the health profession touch many more people than just those working inside of it. Today's guest isn't a physician, but her father was, and her relationship with him inspired her to pursue a career helping clinicians find their voice. Her name is Laurel Breitman, and she's a writer, teacher, secular clinical chaplain in training, and author of the recent memoir What Looks Like Bravery: An Epic Journey Through Loss to Love, which we'll be talking about.
about on today's episode. In addition to her memoir, Laurel is the author of New York Times best-selling book Animal Madness, which examines how animals, just like humans, have feelings. Laurel has a doctorate in history and anthropology from MIT and has helped numerous students, staff, and clinicians tell their stories in her role as the Director of Writing and Storytelling at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In my conversation with Laurel, we talk about what it was like to grow up with a father who was a surgeon and who spent many years suffering with terminal cancer. Laurel talks about how his legacy impacted her emotionally and professionally, why she decided to become a secular chaplain, and why she feels that there's a very thin line between the clinical and the spiritual.
But before we go on, let's hear Laurel read an excerpt from her memoir, What Looks Like Bravery. Here's Laurel.
Prologue Santa Paula, California, september nineteen ninety four. It was a warm Saturday afternoon and the Santa Ana winds ruffled the tops of the avocado trees. I was at home with two good friends, all of us sixteen years old, draped like hormonal dolly clocks over the living room furniture, while we watched the bodyguard on VHS and painted our nails. No one was surprised when I knocked over one of the bottles. I paused the movie and went into my parents' bathroom to get the nail polish remover Mom kept under the sink. I glanced at myself in the mirror. Disappointed, as usual, by my wild hair, tight cheeks, and how little I look like someone Kevin Costner might want to carry to safety. Kneeling down and reaching into the cabinet, I pushed aside the bottles of rubbing alcohol that dad used to clean the stump on his amputated leg.
And the tray of stainless scissors he had brought home from his job at the hospital. I was moving a multi pack of dove soap when I saw it. A small plastic pill bottle. It was strange, not labeled like everything else in the cabinet. It didn't look like the transparent orange prescription bottles that came from the pharmacy either. My body sensed danger before my mind did. something clenched in my chest. My pulse started to throb in my face. There was a handwritten note rubber banded around the bottle. I unrolled it carefully. No one should have to do this for a friend, it read. But here you go. My throat went hot and dry as the winds outside. I steadied myself on the cabinet door. It hit me. Dad had a suicide plan, and he kept it in the bathroom like a box of Q tips or mom's Velcro rollers.
Underneath the message was the name of a drug and dosage instructions written out long hand. I had no idea how long the bottle had been there, or when he was going to use it, but I knew I couldn't ask. I could tell no one about this, not even Mom, or Jake, not ever. I understood without being told that I wasn't supposed to know Dad had a plan, or that anyone had helped him, or that this was barreling towards us like a car whose brakes had gone out.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the premise of Laurel Braitman's memoir *What Looks Like Bravery*?
0:00–10:12
2
How did Laurel’s childhood on a California ranch shape her outlook?
10:12–19:47
3
What was Laurel’s relationship with her surgeon father and how did it influence her career?
19:47–29:57
4
How did Laurel’s father cope with his bone cancer diagnosis and what did Laurel learn from it?
29:57–40:29
5
Why does Laurel emphasize vulnerability for clinicians and how does it affect their work?
40:29–40:43