At Temple, a med student faces a new reality of guns
Photo by Michael Creager
By Michael Vitez
Miranda Haslam, a second year medical student who has taken a great interest in narrative medicine programs here, won the citywide story slam last May at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia with her story, The Next Dance, about her first experience seeing a teenager die from gunshot wounds in the trauma bay.
She comes from a small town, the daughter of a proud Marine and member of the NRA, and her story focused on her changing perspective on guns and gun violence, growing up in one world and training to become a doctor in another.
Following the NRA’s tweet in November 2018 about doctors “staying in their lane,” Miranda felt moved to revise and update her story, which was published Sunday, Dec. 2, in The Philadelphia Inquirer, and first appeared on line on Nov. 28.
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Michael Vitez, winner of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism at The Philadelphia Inquirer, is the director of narrative medicine at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. Michael.vitez@temple.edu
