“It's all in the stories”

More than a decade ago, on the day before he died, Bill Bartholome told me something I will never forget. Bill was a pediatrician, medical ethicist, and nationally known advocate for children's rights in health care. He was also, at the time of our conversation, dying of esophageal cancer. Bill had been chair of the Pediatric Ethics Committee at the University of Kansas for many years. He had asked me to take over. I was uneasy. My background is in literature, not philosophy or ethics. I'd worked with the ethics committee at Boston Children's Hospital but had never imagined myself to be an ethicist or aspired to chair an ethics committee. Bill knew that I was worried about whether I was up to the task. The day before he died, he said to me, “You can do this. It's all in the stories.”