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September 30, 2021
2021
Yvette Perry
Re-set

"I grew from the experience – though I think it aged me 10 years!" This is how a resident described a turning point with a specific patient when he recognized how burned out he was.

August 24, 2021
2021
Elle Klassen
Words of Silver

Although he had been through many stressful experiences in his life and recently, he always held onto his positive outlook. He took particular care to use words intentionally, paying attention to their connotations, so that his positivity extended to those that he interacted with as well.

February 4, 2021
2019
Ravenna Raven
In the Cath Lab

“I’ve always loved hearts,” she said. She was a cardiac nurse who had been drawn to a job in the catheterization laboratory. “It’s so rare to have an opportunity to immediately do something good for somebody, but it happens often in the cath lab,” she told me.

October 13, 2020
2020
Frankie Abralind
PPE

She was tired after working twelve straight days on her current rotation. It was her third year of medical school, and she was already feeling burnt out. “I have five more years like this,” she said. “My sister tells me, ‘Keep pushing, you can get through it,’ but I don’t know if I can.”

August 24, 2020
2020
Jenny Hegland
Skin

He had been thinking a lot about race over the past several months. He’s a White man with two children: a 20-year-old biological son who is White, and an 18-year-old adopted daughter who is Black.

Ravenna Raven
April 1, 2026
2025

Housewarming

Ravenna Raven
April 1, 2026
2025

Interspersed with the joys and worries of being a gramma, she recounted her own grandparents – challenges and opportunities of caring for them, grief of losing them, gratitude for being loved by them, and the everyday experiences of now living in their home.

Tagged: Communities, Rebecca Wilson, CLP Practicum Poems

Ravenna Raven
March 1, 2026
2024

Language of Diagnosis

Ravenna Raven
March 1, 2026
2024

What is pain without a diagnosis? This is what occupied this patient before she even received her breast cancer diagnosis about a year ago.

Tagged: Joseph Jablonski, Patients

Ravenna Raven
February 27, 2026
2025

Gratitude

Ravenna Raven
February 27, 2026
2025

She told me that she picked her battles more and was trying to be less of a people pleaser.

Tagged: Joseph Jablonski, Patients

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2023

Growth Phase

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2023

He ended up talking about his son, who is now his daughter. Another part of his experience of continual growth and soul-opening.

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, NCFR Conference 2025, Mindy Shah

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2025

Dinner

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2025

Her values and perspective on life had changed as she considered ways to spend more time with her husband.

Tagged: NCFR Conference 2025, Communities, Zina Mercil

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2022

American Sonnet for Father Day and the Wisdom Tree

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2022

“When I see an old dude who’s optimistic, living his life, I always stop to talk to him to try to find out what he has done.”

Tagged: NCFR Conference 2025, Yvette Perry, Patients

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2024

enough

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2024

This nurse was considering leaving a position where she spent many years due to issues she experienced and witnessed at her hospital.

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, NCFR Conference 2025, Yvette Perry

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2022

Variant

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2022

Many of the people he worked with had to develop a new identity in the context of their caregiving responsibilities. “It’s as if they need to become a new variant of themselves.”

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, NCFR Conference 2025, Yvette Perry

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2022

In the River You May Find Yourself

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2022

“We’re taught to enter a room with a specific goal... with assumptions... with a hypothesis about what may be going on with the patient.”

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, NCFR Conference 2025, Yvette Perry

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2024

The Shift

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2024

She believes that most of those who have connected with ACS began with a personal connection, but then, according to her, “you evolve, and you shift.”

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, NCFR Conference 2025, American Cancer Society, Chidube Nkiruka

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2024

Walk With Me

Ravenna Raven
February 1, 2026
2024

With her background in counseling and psychology, she works to bring people together and support patients.

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, NCFR Conference 2025, American Cancer Society, Elizabeth Pringle, February 2025

Ravenna Raven
December 31, 2025
2024

Legacy of Hope

Ravenna Raven
December 31, 2025
2024

Although at times she becomes discouraged about the inequalities in the world, she is determined to do her part by making sure everyone has access to quality healthcare.

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, American Cancer Society, January 2026, Chidube Nkiruka

Ravenna Raven
November 24, 2025
2024

Living in the Magic

Ravenna Raven
November 24, 2025
2024

This person radiated gratitude and hope. She shared that she discovered she was expecting a son just before receiving a lung cancer diagnosis at the age of 31.

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, Chanice Withers, American Cancer Society, December 2025

Ravenna Raven
November 12, 2025
2025

The House Medicine Built

Ravenna Raven
November 12, 2025
2025

She had an epiphany as a child — that love could heal the world. Now, as a seasoned physician, there’s still a part of her that believes in the power of love, but not with the same idealism she once held.

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, Leigh Finnegan-Hosey

Ravenna Raven
October 20, 2025
2025

Why Neurologists Write

Ravenna Raven
October 20, 2025
2025

He talked about recently speaking with a patient who experiences migraines: she is seeking the truth, he is seeking the truth to find a way to work with her, wanting to give more than a diagnosis and prognosis.

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, Why Poetry Matters in Healthcare, Sophie L. Schott, November 2025

Ravenna Raven
October 20, 2025
2025

I Am Stuck on a Wheel That Keeps Turning

Ravenna Raven
October 20, 2025
2025

To her, the surgical world has felt like “a wheel that keeps spinning,” a seemingly endless pursuit towards an undefinable goal.

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, Leigh Finnegan-Hosey, KNN Vol. 2

Ravenna Raven
October 20, 2025
2025

List

Ravenna Raven
October 20, 2025
2025

While she kept an open mind throughout medical school, the field of OB/GYN ticked off all the boxes for her.

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, Yvette Perry, Amplifying Voices

Ravenna Raven
October 20, 2025
2025

No Words Exist (Why They’re Afraid of Us)

Ravenna Raven
October 20, 2025
2025

“I was at a birth recently and thought: This is why they are so afraid of us. They can’t control this” She sat on her couch with a mug of coffee. She is a queer, femme, mother of two who has worked in reproductive health for over two decades.

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, Julia McDonald, Hysteriography

Ravenna Raven
October 20, 2025
2025

Where Do the Children Play?

Ravenna Raven
October 20, 2025
2025

“I always took strength from the way little kids would handle it.”

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, American Cancer Society, Gray Davidson Carroll

Ravenna Raven
October 20, 2025
2025

We Shall Know Her Name

Ravenna Raven
October 20, 2025
2025

“The historic traumas of African-American women — all African-Americans — lead us to not be the first people at the doctors, nor the first to get surgery.”

Tagged: Healthcare Staff, Sibihan Lawrence, Cedars-Sinai 2025

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Photos courtesy of Jeff Krentel Photography, Deborah Raven, A Byrdseye Photo, and Brendan Bush for The Mayo Clinic.

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