Telltale Hearts: A Public Health Doctor, His Patients, and the Power of Story

In this illuminating work, a doctor and public health advocate reveals what his patients have taught him about patience and healing.

For over three decades, Dr. Dean-David Schillinger has served in one of the country’s busiest and most important public hospitals. A public health leader and primary care physician for underserved patients, Schillinger learned that high-tech tests and novel medications are often not enough to save lives. Rather, accurate diagnosis, treatment and true healing come from listening deeply to patients and their stories.

In Telltale Hearts, Schillinger reveals what is lost when patients’ stories are ignored or overlooked, and how much is gained when these stories are actively elicited. The stories themselves, at times shocking and always revelatory, disclose secrets, prompt awe, forge unexpected connections, and even catalyze public health action.

Telltale Hearts serves as a call to action, urging us to reshape public policy to improve the nation’s health.

Dean-David Schillinger is a primary care physician, scientist, author, and public health advocate. Dr. Schillinger is an internationally recognized expert in health communication and has been widely recognized for his work related to improving the health of vulnerable populations. He is credited with a number of discoveries in primary care and health communication and is considered one of the founders of the field of health literacy. He is a practicing general internist and Chief of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Division of General Internal Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), where he founded the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations (CVP) in 2006, a leading research center committed to addressing the social determinants of health through research, education, policy and practice.