Sharing Stories, Changing Lives

“One patient told us how it felt to perform her own dialysis on her wedding day”

Immersive learning can generate genuine empathy. This is the proposition that inspired our award-winning programme, A Life In A Day (ALIAD). This invaluable tool helps healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical sales reps and other medical practitioners understand the real lived experiences of their patients. Through our app, they encounter the difficult decisions that patients with a range of conditions (previous programmes include Renal Cell Carcinoma, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, and COPD) have to make every day that impact their physical and mental health, their career, and their family life. As a result, our users will  make better, more patient-centric decisions in their professional lives.

As Creative Lead, part of my role in the development of ALIAD is interviewing patients. Finding out how they felt when they were diagnosed, and at the beginning of their treatment, how they feel now, what helped them cope, and what they wish had been different.

These extraordinary stories, along with guidance from medical professionals, help me write the programme’s content, create a engaging story from beginning to end, and get the tone of voice right. We’re currently interviewing patients for a programme for Chronic Kidney Disease. One unforgettable interviewee revealed that she chose her treatment options based on whether or not she’d still have the confidence to flirt with men. Another told us how it felt to perform her own dialysis on her wedding day. One person felt so fatigued by their illness that it took them two hours to change their bedding.

These powerful anecdotes offer us a glimpse into the real lives of patients beyond their diagnosis – put simply, patients became people. I feel privileged to be entrusted to retell them as faithfully and authentically as possible.

This is an opportunity for patients to share their experience knowing that their voice can make a tangible difference. That their stories have the power to change the way medical professionals view and treat other patients like them and ultimately improve their lives.