Telling stories in medicine...loving the art of humanity

Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity--Hippocrates

There are data stories everywhere. In workshops, I often begin with a graphic perhaps from a clinical paper or more often a work of art. Asking people what they actually "see" is the first step in telling an effective story. We start with an idea and then look for other sources of data--to avoid confirmation bias and to provide a 360 perspective to a thought or premise.

​The first place I look to seed a discussion is usually Google Trends. It is easy peasy and a lot more user friendly than Google Adwords for example. The visualization below is a quick simplified attempt to demonstrate how quickly you can begin exploring. As we debate healthcare reform I remain an active voice in  the narrative--especially as we discuss "value" and the patient perspective.

The first question I ask in a public forum is whether healthcare is a human right or a free market commodity. I know it can be polarizing but I don't think you would argue that potential solutions would be quite different. Being top of mind, I thought I would see what Google searches thought of the matter. The first 2 graphics are US and Worldwide searches respectively. You can see little spikes in interest over time. It might be interesting to see if there are any correlations with real world events--there is a Google Correlate for that...not shown here, but perhaps news headlines or events were driving the sentiment on Google. The worldwide visualization does show an interesting pattern over time when comparing human right vs. free market.

You are also able to layer in other categories or variables. The topic "social determinants of health" is captured by Google shown below in US and world-wide.

I encourage you to begin exploring data. The new age of data exploration isn't just for statisticians or analysts. I recommend a great book Everybody Lies: Big Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. If you like data enabled storytelling--welcome aboard!