ABSTRACT
Our examples of the place of storytelling in the exchange of knowledge begin among the Lawndale clinicians.
™ The QPA requires that ten emergency hospital admissions from the practice be appraised and reported, detailing what happened and the lessons learnt. At a QPA meeting Jean opens with an anecdote about a recent emergency that makes them all laugh. (She had sent the patient to Marge for a blood test, during which the patient developed chest pain. Marge sent the patient to Rose, the triage nurse, who referred her back to Jean, who sent her to hospital.) Over the next fifteen minutes, six more stories follow, in which the main events surrounding the admission and the lessons are recounted, often with black humour at the storyteller’s own expense, and clinical lessons (was this ‘acute coronary syndrome’ as the hospital said or angina or pericarditis?) and critical comments about the local services (positive and negative) are quickly shared. The lessons conveyed by the stories are never challenged or critically commented on.
