Health Stories & Poems

Do you have valuable experience or expertise in coping with illness you would like to pass on to other users of Patient UK as a story or poem? Or could you use your story telling or poetic talent to help us convey important health messages in an attractive way?

If you would like to have a go and earn up to £50 for every written work we accept (if a page or more long) then please register with our (free) authoring sister site, MoreWriting, where you will find the tools to start work.

• Register with MoreWriting giving your writing name and password (link top left of MoreWriting Home Page). This will create a portfolio, called 'MySpace' for you to use.
• Once registered, you can navigate to 'MySpace' using left hand menu. Click the link to start writing, enter in a title, select the type 'Educational Health Stories' - and you are off.
• When you have written a health story or poem then follow the instructions to send it for review by other authors and our medical experts. The criteria we will be using to select works for payment include:
  • Creativity
  • Originality
  • Readability
  • Clarity of medical message
  • Favourable review by other MoreWriting authors
  • Technically correct
• Your work may pass review at the first attempt or you may need to take in some of the feedback first.
• If we would like to use your work, we will make you an offer for it (depending on length and suitability) and then post it on Patient UK under your name or writing name.

Anyway, good luck.

We will consider stories and poems written to help educate people about any health topic of public interest. If you are writing with children in mind then please make sure the language you use is suitable for ages 7-12.

Story and Poem Topic Suggestions

The topics that have been covered so far are:

• A and E
• A Clean Bill of Health
• A Gift from Granny (tonsillitis)
• A Golden Age
• A Halloween Curse
• A Memorable Day
• A Pain in the Heart
• A Prickly Situation
• A Shaggy Dog Story
• A Special Kind of Life
• A Tick can be Cross Too!
• A Ticklish Tale
• A Wasp in the Jar: a Medical Story about Bulimia
• Abnormal
• Adam Learns to Cope with Diabetes
• Always on the Go
• Angie's got an Itis - Appendicitis
• Angina - an Affair of the Heart
• Anorexia Nervosa
• Arthur Who?
• Athlete's Foot? Stamp on it!
• Auntie Biotic's Problem Page
• Autism
• Bald is Beautiful Too
• Barbara's Bunions
• Barry Bids Bad Breath Bye-Bye!
• Be Safe in the Sun
• Beating Asthma
• Beating Shingles
• Ben has Guillain-Barre Syndrome
• Beware of the Garden Shed
• Billy's Wheezy Chest
• Bingo, Burmese, Beethoven and Boils
• Born to Binge
• Brave Young Hannah meets the MRI Scanner
• Breaking a Bone
• Brought to a Head
• Bye-Bye Bees, Whiz Away Wasps
• Canny Konks and Happy Hooters
• Circumcision
• Coeliac Disease
• Common Sense v Embarrassment
• Connnstipation
• Cystic Fibrosis
• Derek's Angina
• Ditch Your Itchy Bottom
• Don't Get Lippy
• Don't Let It Get Under Your Skin
• Dull Days
• Easing the Pressure
• Epileptic Seizure (First Aid)
• Eye, Eye
• Five a Day
• Flowers for Millie
• Forgettin' Bedwettin'
• Gastroenteritis? It shouldn't cause a Crisis!
• Gemma Faces up to Bell's Palsy
• Gerald's Gout
• Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty
• Getting Your Ears Syringed
• Gilbert Won't Make You Sick
• Giving Up Smoking
• Glue Ear
• Going to the Doctor's? No Worries!
• Got to Dash
• Have you seen the Medic Man, Medic Man, Medic Man
• Having a Blood Test
• Having an Angiogram
• Hospital
• I Spy in Your Little Eye
• I Used to Have a Squint
• Ian's Impetigo
• Inside
• It Cuts Both Ways
• It's all in the Blood!
• It's Enough to Make you Sick
• Janey's Molluscum Contagiosum
• John's Dog Bite
• Just Stop
• Keep Taking the Pills
• Keeping Steady
• Laughter is Good Medicine
• Learn to be Wary of Scars that look Scary
• Lizzie Wells Really Smells
• Loneliness
• Maisie's Measles
• Meet the Asthma Nurse
• Mollie and Michael - Mole Detectives
• Monkey and Harriet
• Mrs Baxter's Blocked Ears
• Mumps Can Be a Pain in the Neck
• Mum's Got a Migraine
• My Cystic Fibrosis
• My Mummy: The Coeliac
• Nice and Naughty
• No Ifs, No Buts, No Maybes - It's Scabies
• No Rest For Lisa's Legs
• Now Wash Your Hands!
• OCD, David Beckham and Me ...
• Pink Carnations Made Me Cry
• Pleurisy - What a Pain!
• Popping a Poo
• Portion of Chicken - Easy on the Pox
• Princess Charlene's Vitiligo
• Quit Before It's Too Late
• Restoring the Balance
• Seth's Bad Breath
• Skin Flakes Keep Falling From Your Head, They Keep Falling
• Spot Check!
• Spotting the Problem
• Starting your Periods
• Stephen's Sticky-Out Ears
• Stories to Read in the Waiting Room ...
• Stranded
• Stuart's Type 2 Diabetes
• Super Gran
• Tanning's Not Trendy
• Teef
• Terry Simpson's Got Tourette's Syndrome
• The Big One
• The Day that Gran Forgot
• The ENT Doctor's Song
• The Snake that Sneezed and Sneezed
• The Stroke
• The Weigh Forward
• Treating Anal Fissures
• Vertigo - a Distressing Wait
• Vlad the Impaler
• Walking Back to Happiness
• Wandering Hand Disease
• What's your Poison?
• When the Chips Are Down
• Where Did My Energy Go?
• Who Did That? It Wasn't Me!
• X-ray Machine
• You are What you Eat
• You Can Always Have Another
• You Say Hiccoughs .... and I Say Hiccups!
• You say MEgraine, I say MYgraine
• You're Feeling Sad? ... You're Not Alone
• Zzzzz

There are over 700 information leaflets on Patient UK so there are many more topics that could be covered, just let your creativity flow, however it's worth reading up on the subject first to make sure whatever you write is medically correct. One are that is worth considering is:

General learning difficulties

Use the Patient UK search box above and type in 'learning difficulties'. Follow links to self help group web sites to find out more.

Please don't hesitate to contact us with further questions.