For millennia humans communicated through stories. Then we learned to write and stopped telling stories. And now there’s the social web. We’re back to telling stories.

I was able to listen to Roni Zeiger’s keynote yesterday at E-Patient Connections where he drove home the importance of telling stories in the context of one’s medical history. In fact, he recounted his own compelling story of a recent subarachnoid hemorrhage complete with before and after CT images. Anyone who claims that a doctor can’t really understand what it’s like to be a patient should give him a call.

Roni made the provocative suggestion that our medical history should lie at the intersection of data and stories. To that end he has partnered with Lucien Engelen and Gilles Frydman to collect patient stories in the simplest of ways. They have created a project called MyHealthStory.  It works like this: Upload your story to YouTube, tag with ‘MyHealthStory’ and ping Roni or Lucien. Students at Radboud REshape & Innovation Centre will curate clips for your viewing pleasure. They’re not quite at cruising altitude but you’ll soon be able to find their collection at Myhealthstory.me.

It seems that new media has given us new ways to rekindle our oral culture.

What’s your health story?