Going Public: Sharing Your Health Journey on Social Platforms

Symposium Editor: Lindsey Grubbs, PhD

Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics will publish a collection of personal stories from people who have shared information about their health on social media platforms. In the last few decades, patients have sought to play more active roles in the management of their health. Instinctively or strategically, they craft health narratives to assist clinicians with diagnosis and treatment decisions, to build community and seek medical information, and to psychologically process their experiences with illness and with the healthcare system. With increasing frequency, medical journeys are shared online, sometimes within the safety of patient communities—other times to wider, anonymous public viewers on YouTube, Instagram, or other popular public platforms.

We seek stories from people who have shared their personal heath experiences on social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, personal blogs, or in the chatrooms of patient communities. We want true, personal stories in a form that is interesting and easy to read. Please share this invitation and guide sheet. In writing your story, please consider these questions:

• What was your initial reason for sharing your story publicly? Was your goal fulfilled?
• Did you interact with people who learned about your experiences? What were these communications like?
• What was the quality of medical/psychological/emotional information or support you gained from this public sharing of your story?
• Did you ever regret making your personal journey open to the public? Why or why not?
• Did you find the process of sharing your story to be empowering? Freeing? Scary?
• Did the opinions of your family, friends, or care team influence how you told your story?
• Do you have suggestions for people interested in sharing their health experiences on social media?

You do not need to address each of these questions—write about the issues that you think are most important to share. If you are not a writer, tell your story in your own words and our editorial staff will help you.

If you are interested in submitting a story, we ask you first to submit a 300-word proposal—a short description of the story you want to tell. Inquiries or proposals should be sent to the editorial office via email: narrativebioethics@gmail.com. We will give preference to proposals received by August 18, 2025. If your story is invited, we will ask you to submit it within 6 weeks of the invitation. Final stories are 4 – 10 double-spaced pages or 800 – 2000 words.

For more information about the journal Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, the guidelines for authors, and privacy policies, visit our webpage at: http://nibjournal.org/submit/guidelines/

We plan to publish 12 stories on this topic in our print edition; additional stories may be published as online-only supplemental material. We also publish 3 – 4 commentary articles that discuss the stories that are published in the journal. To see a finished symposium, please visit Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics’ page on Project MUSE and click on the unlocked, open-access issue.

Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics is indexed in PubMed, MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, and PhilPapers.
The journal is published by the Johns Hopkins University Press and is available in print and electronically to over 1,200 institutional subscribers via Project MUSE.