Laurel Braitman

Artist, Brainstormer, Business adviser, Change Agent, Concerned citizen, Environmentalist, Explorer, Filmmaker, Global soul, Idea generator, Journalist, Performer, Producer, World traveler, Writer/Editor

Laurel Braitman PhD is a New York Times bestselling author, Director of Writing and Storytelling at Stanford School of Medicine's Medical Arts and Humanities Program and the founder of Writing Medicine, the global community of writing healthcare professionals. Since March 2020, Laurel has helped over 10,000 healthcare workers tell their own stories and those of their patients. Her own writing is on the subjects of mental health, resilience, the natural sciences, and more. She is author of the memoir “What Looks Like Bravery: An epic journey from loss to love” (Simon & Schuster 2023) which Publisher’s Weekly called “perfect for anyone seeking to heal a broken heart.” Her first book, “Animal Madness: Inside their minds”, was a NYT bestseller and has been translated into seven languages. Laurel’s work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, Good Morning America and Al Jazeera. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, Wired and other publications. She is a Senior TED Fellow. Laurel splits her time between remote Alaska where her husband runs a 113 year old salmon cannery and her family's commercial citrus and avocado ranch in Southern CA.

Helping physicians and other healthcare professionals communicate more clearly and vulnerably for their benefit and that of their patients. Also affordable, accessible support for kids and young adults who’ve experienced a loss.

Grief is the gift you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy but it comes for nearly all of us eventually. If we’re lucky, we can use the pain of loss to focus and inspire us to become the people we most want to be…finding meaning in the hard sh*t and doing work that matters.

Anthropology of Science & Technology, Books, History of Science, Interdisciplinarity, Journalism, Medical Education, Medicine, Mental Health (Care), Performance, Resilience, Writing

Capturing birds that get stuck in the house, backing up trailers.