[Photo by Elianna Gill on Unsplash]
Lessons in Trust from Dartmouth Health and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
For more than two decades, I’ve experienced Dartmouth Health from multiple perspectives. I’ve been a patient. I delivered all four of my children there. Over the years, some of the physicians who cared for my family also became familiar faces in the community.
I also spent years working within the health system, beginning in the Intensive Care Nursery (ICN). There, I managed paperwork associated with neonatal transfers, including babies arriving from other hospitals for specialized care, and was often one of the first people parents encountered when visiting their newborn.
At the time, I was also the parent of a healthy infant. Working around premature and critically ill newborns gave me a perspective I have never forgotten. Families were entering an unfamiliar environment at an extraordinarily vulnerable time, and even administrative interactions were part of their experience.
Working evenings and weekends allowed me to remain present with my own children during the day while continuing my education. Eventually, my path took me into other roles across the health system.
As a hospital operator, I learned how much can depend on calm, accurate communication. The role included paging physicians, handling incoming calls, activating emergency notifications, and communicating with patients, families, clinicians, and staff. Some interactions were routine. Others occurred during moments when clarity and speed were essential.
Later, I stepped into one of the most difficult roles of my career: deceased patient coordinator. When a physician called a death, I helped manage the administrative process that followed. I communicated with physicians, completed required reporting, coordinated with the morgue, and made sure details were handled accurately and respectfully.
It was quiet work, largely invisible to the people outside the process. But it taught me something that has remained relevant throughout my career: details can carry enormous weight when the person on the other side of an experience is navigating something difficult.
Eventually, I transitioned into the marketing department as an assistant, where I began to see healthcare communication from another perspective. A website, brochure, phone script, form, or set of instructions could either help someone understand what to do next or add another layer of confusion to an already complicated experience.
Having worked so close to both life’s beginnings and endings, I understood that healthcare communication is rarely just information.
There is always a person receiving it.
Where Healthcare and Education Meet
At an academic medical center, healthcare, education, and research intersect every day. The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth educates future physicians and scientists, while clinical learning takes place across affiliated healthcare environments, including Dartmouth Health.
As a patient, I’ve experienced that intersection firsthand. I’ve allowed residents and medical students to participate in my care because I understood that clinical education requires supervised experience with real patients. As an employee, I also worked around physicians balancing patient care with teaching and other academic responsibilities.
That environment taught me to think about communication from more than one perspective.
- Patients need information that helps them understand their care, their options, and what they need to do next.
- Learners need clear expectations, guidance, and access to the information required to develop their knowledge and skills.
- Clinicians and faculty need digital systems and content that help them communicate complex information efficiently and accurately.
The audiences may have different needs, but clarity and trust are important across all three.
Storytelling as a Bridge
My time in healthcare taught me to pay close attention not only to what we communicate, but to how people are likely to receive it.
A benefits page filled with unfamiliar terminology can leave a patient unsure of what to do next. Instructions written primarily for the organization rather than the reader can make a relatively simple task feel complicated.
Plain language doesn’t mean removing necessary information. It means making that information easier to understand and act on.
For example:
- Healthcare jargon: “Members must verify prior authorization requirements with the payer before scheduling a diagnostic imaging procedure.”
- Plain language: “Before you schedule your test, check with your insurance to see if you need approval.”
Or in medical education:
- Administrative tone: “All residents must adhere to institutional guidelines regarding patient interactions and consent.”
- Human tone: “Before you join a patient’s care, check in with your supervising physician and make sure the patient is comfortable with your involvement.”
The underlying information hasn’t changed. The difference is that the second version considers what the reader needs in order to understand and act.
And communication doesn’t stop with the words themselves. In digital spaces, structure is part of the message.
A page overloaded with text, competing calls to action, unclear headings, or poorly organized information can make an already complicated task harder. A well-structured experience can help someone understand where they are, what information is relevant, and what they should do next.
That’s why my work has expanded beyond writing and storytelling into the larger digital experience:
- Structuring content within a CMS so it can remain consistent, scalable, and maintainable.
- Using information architecture to help people find and understand what they need.
- Creating clear content hierarchies and calls to action.
- Considering accessibility from the beginning rather than treating it as a final compliance check.
- Using analytics and user behavior to identify where an experience may be creating unnecessary friction.
Whether the audience is a patient trying to understand an appointment, a family looking for information, or a learner navigating an academic program, the goal is similar: make the experience clear, accessible, trustworthy, and human-centered.
Two Gowns, One Goal
When I reflect on the relationship between healthcare and medical education, I think about two familiar symbols: the hospital gown and the white coat.
One represents the vulnerability that often accompanies being a patient. The other represents the responsibility that comes with learning to care for one.
Both depend on trust.
Patients need to trust the people and systems involved in their care. Learners need environments where they can develop knowledge and judgment under appropriate supervision. And the institutions supporting both need communication systems that help people navigate extraordinarily complex organizations.
Digital experience may seem far removed from an exam room or a medical-school classroom, but increasingly it is one of the places where those relationships begin.
Someone searches for a physician. Reads about a diagnosis. Looks for financial information. Applies to medical school. Searches for a research program. Tries to understand an appointment. Finds a clinical trial. Looks for help.
Before they ever speak with another person, they may encounter the organization through a screen.
That experience deserves the same thoughtfulness we expect from every other point of contact.
In Reflection
My career didn’t begin in digital strategy. It began much closer to the people healthcare organizations exist to serve.
I saw parents arriving to visit critically ill newborns. I heard patients and families calling a hospital because they needed help finding the right person. I supported processes surrounding the end of a patient’s life. Later, I saw how marketing and digital communication could shape those experiences before someone ever arrived at the hospital.
Those experiences still influence how I approach digital work today.
I think about the person trying to find the information. I think about what they may already be carrying when they arrive at the page. I think about whether the language is understandable, whether the experience is accessible, whether the next step is clear, and whether the technology is helping or getting in the way.
That’s why, to me, digital strategy isn’t ultimately about pages, platforms, or clicks.
It’s about creating systems that help people find what they need and move forward with greater clarity and confidence.