LeVar Burton Discusses the Power of Storytelling in Health Care

As host of “Reading Rainbow” for more than two decades, LeVar Burton has always been a proponent of storytelling. That time as an advocate for the arts has now shifted to being a champion of health care and for individuals with myeloproliferative neoplasms.

In an interview with CURE®, Burton, an author, actor and director, explained that storytelling is natural for all of us. And, he expressed, people should dictate their stories to their health care teams.

"In terms of seeing a health care professional and being able to accurately (and) successfully, give them your story — your medical story — so that they might be best equipped to help you take care of yourself, right," he said.

Transcription

We all want to be seen. And in life, it's part of the human condition. And telling our story is the right tool for the job in terms of communicating who we are, what's important to us and how the events as they have unfolded in our lives have helped shaped the people that we are. And that's a skill that's valuable in every aspect of our lives.

Most notably, in terms of seeing a health care professional and being able to accurately (and) successfully, give them your story — your medical story — so that they might be best equipped to help you take care of yourself, right? So storytelling is an absolutely innate part of being human. And there's a reason for that, so much information that is contained in stories. There's just so much about the experience of being human is contained and most successfully communicated via story.

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