Michelle Johnston is a part-time emergency physician, and full-time observer of life. Having spent many a day as a bit part player in the narrative of her patients lives she took a risk and wrote a book – Dustfall.

Dustfall tells a story of lives laid bare by medical error, of lives ruined and remade amidst the backdrop of the scorched earth of Western Australia. But this talk isn’t about her novel, it is about the importance of stories, the ones we tell and the ones our patients tell us.