Issue 2 - Summer - Providence Washington - Providence Health ...

{HISTORY}
The Beat Goes On
Celebrating five decades of heartfelt storytelling
By Amy Lynn Smith
1982
2007
1962
1992
Be Part of
the Story
To subscribe or share your
own Heart Beat story, visit
phc.org/heartbeat.
You could say that Heart
Beat has always had heart.
Because in its more than
50 years of publication, people have
mattered most, both in the stories
told and the writers and editors who
have told them.
Heart Beat was born in the 1960s
as a monthly newspaper, mostly
for internal distribution. By the
1970s, its distribution and content
expanded to include physicians,
supporters and
other friends of the
hospital. Now a
communitywide
publication, it
has kept up with
the times in content
and design.
As much as
the magazine has
evolved, though, it
has never lost sight of
what matters most: people.
“The publication has always been
very much about the relationships,”
says Kate Vanskike, the current
managing editor and one of the
magazine’s primary writers. “It’s
focused on connecting people with
caregivers and with our Mission.”
Like all the magazine’s editors
and writers, Vanskike gets her
greatest satisfaction from sharing
the stories of patients and staff who
have experienced amazing things.
About the People
The late Al Huber, the magazine’s
first editor, was a pure-blooded
newspaperman who liked to call
himself “Ye Olde Editor.” Others
have followed—Maureen Goins,
Marilyn Thordarson and Vanskike—
each of them bringing his or her
own personality to the role of editor.
Around 1978, Thordarson developed
a friendship with a family
whose child was in the neonatal
intensive care unit and created a
narrative about their experience.
“I wrote about these premature
babies being like fragile flowers,
and one of our leading obstetricians
read my story to his students, to help
teach them the human aspect as well
as the science,” says Thordarson.
One of the stories that left the
most powerful impression on
Vanskike involved a well-known
area woman who was struggling
with mental illness and was able
to regain her life because of the
psychiatric care she received at
Sacred Heart.
“Not only did the story help people
understand what the treatment actually
involves, it gave them insights
into mental illness, which still has an
incredible stigma,” she explains. “For
months after that issue of Heart Beat
came out, this woman was hearing
from people who had been greatly
impacted by her testimony.”
Stories like these leave a lasting
impression on both the readers and
the creators. Vanskike and Thordarson
have stayed in touch with
many of the people they’ve written
about. What’s more, people remember
what they’ve read.
“Just the other day a doctor
asked for an issue from 30 years
ago,” says Vanskike, “so it’s something
people really identify as part
of our organization.”
Summer 2012 Heart Beat ● 27