OMED keynote: ‘The healing power of listening is remarkable’

“Being married is like having a color television—you never want to go back to black and white.” That’s how Danny Perasa described his relationship with his wife during one of their many visits to StoryCorps, an oral history project that has archived more than 65,000 interviews in the Library of Congress.

StoryCorps founder Dave Isay explained the project’s genesis and goals to OMED attendees, interspersed with remarkable stories like that of Mary Johnson and Oshea Israel, who forged an unlikely friendship while Israel was serving prison time for killing Johnson’s son.

The power of these stories, Isay said, is simple and no surprise to DOs: “Listening to someone reminds them that they matter.” That’s a truth Isay has experienced in his interactions with his own physician, who is a DO. “When you listen to people, you can see their spines straighten,” he related. “The healing power of that is remarkable.”