Episode 16 - Michelle Johnston

After a short break from the podcast, This Emergency Life returns for its second season in 2021. To start the season we bring you a conversation with Emergency Physician, author and Fellow of the Australian College for Emergency Medicine Dr Michelle Johnston. Born and trained in Perth, Michelle works at Royal Perth Hospital, an inner-city trauma centre. Her specialties are “meetings-avoidance, mess, critical care, violence, and the crumbling fabric of society”. She is also heavily involved in teaching the fellowship program to the “bright young things of Emergency Medicine”. Her area of interest is literature: writing, story-telling, uncovering the poetry in pathology and finding the beating heart of creativity in critical care medicine. In this first episode for 2021 we spoke with Michelle about how we manage errors in the ED and her first book, Dustfall, published by UWAP in 2018. Dustfall is a story about both medical and corporate error, set up in the razed asbestos mining town of Wittenoom in Western Australia. The book was UWAP’s third biggest seller and was short-listed for the MUD literary prize. Her second novel titled A Small Matter of Faith is completed and with a literary agent for spruiking. Michelle also writes a regular column for Emergency Medicine News, and contributes to the literary section of the medical blog Life in the Fast Lane. She also runs workshops for both doctors and normal people about creativity and writing skills. Michelle was a delight to talk to and we highly recommend that you read her novel and catch up with her internet scrivenings and Twitter posts - you won’t be sorry.