#PatientsRock by Peta Bush

I was welcomed on my arrival at the Waterfront Museum by beautiful harp music. It drew me into a most enjoyable and meaningful conference where I sat captivated in the audience, and where I also shared my story as a designer-researcher and patient. As a designer-researcher, who is interested in patient narrative, I hoped to learn from the experts. As a patient, I left feeling even more empowered and valued.
 
 
These packed few days demonstrated for me the transformational effect that the arts have on people’s lives. We will all be patients and experience ill health and disability. This conference explored and expressed many of the ways that storytellers, patients and health practitioners have found to share these experiences, in ways that enrich our lives. I heard stories that made me laugh, that offered moments of contemplation, and those made me feel strength and delight.
 
 
I listened to patients and arts practitioners, and I heard from healthcare professionals who listened to their patients - I mean - really listened.  There were discussions about care, about listening, about empathy and compassion and how difficult it all can be and how inspiring it was when it worked. This conference offered stories with rich layers to unwrap and to learn about our health and ill-health experiences.
 
 
And in all of this was the patient - voicing dreams hopes and fears, displaying the muckiness and rawness of lives and making sense of it all. Patient narratives are important, they show us the humanity of the patient and in so doing reflect our own humanity.
 
 
I drag myself away from this conference exhausted, energised and well-fed – no conference sandwiches here! And importantly, I left knowing that patients rock!