Donna Bulseco: Where it Hurts

The Library Foundation is honored to present Donna Bulseco, editor of Where it Hurts: Dispatches from the Emotional Frontlines of Medicine. She will be joined in conversation by surgeon and local author Daly Walker.  

Bulseco is also Editor-in-Chief of Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. The term narrative medicine, which may be new to some readers, is a subdiscipline of health humanities. In short, it refers to the practice of storytelling by practitioners or patients. Their work can provide a profound benefit to healing. 

The academic study of the effect of such expressions was developed by Dr. Rita Charon, who spearheaded the Master of Science in Narrative Medicine program at Columbia University in 2000. 

Since Fall of 2011, Intima Journal has published the writing and artwork by clinicians, caregivers and patients. Where It Hurts is an anthology of these works, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. 

Donna Bulseco is a journalist and editor who holds graduate degrees in English from Brown University and in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. In addition to her work at Intima Journal, she has published in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, InStyle, Self, and The Purist.

Daly Walker, M.D., practiced general surgery in Columbus, Indiana for 35 years. He was a battalion surgeon with the Army in Vietnam, where he received a Bronze Star. He is the author of two collections of short stories: Surgeon Stories and The Doctor’s Dilemma and is one of the editors of Intima Journal. His work has appeared in numerous literary publications, including The Saturday Evening Post and The Atlantic Monthly. His story, “Resuscitation,” is published in Where It Hurts.

Advance event registration will open to our donors via an email invitation in late October, six weeks before the event. 

Shortly thereafter, registration will be open to all. 

Open to the public at no charge – Registration is required.