Category: medical stories

Sometimes it's a good idea when writing about, say, cancer, to try to imagine how a person with cancer will react to the story. Or how an obese person will interpret a story about obesity.

It's what you might call the core audience for a medical story: the people who actually have the thing you're writing about.

Today, I became that reader. After carrying my 4-month-old son around in a sling for two hours yesterday while we chased his older brother around the park, I now read that some slings are being recalled because they've been linked to infant deaths.

I need a story that tells me exactly what the problem is, which slings are involved, and what to do. I'm the core audience. I'm the guy with his kid in the sling. I'm the guy whose...