JAMA recently published an essay titled ‘The Stories We Tell Ourselves’.

The author, palliative care physician Dr Danielle Chammas, writes about the importance of the words we choose when we speak, and our task as physicians to help our patients view their circumstances in the best possible light and to ‘rewrite’ their stories.

She says: “Stories allow for the integration of loss, fear and suffering into one’s life. They become the vehicle through which clinicians can help patients redefine what it is they are hoping for (rather than lose touch with hope all together).

“Is somebody a patient, a victim, a survivor, a burden?