CAREER CUES
Passion for the Story, Compassion for the People
T
PULITZER-PRIZE WINNER SHARES HEART OF HIS WRITING LIFE
By Linda Shockley
he Pulitzer Prizes are
celebrating 100 years
of honoring the best in
journalism, literature and
the arts.
As with everything else, our
connection is through the alumni
of our programs. Each April when
the prizes are announced, we
search our databases looking for
the names of the winners. This year
three came up: Wesley Lowery,
(2010 and 2011) of The Washington
Post and Los Angeles Times
reporters Lauren Raab (2008) and
Joy Resmovits (2010).
Lowery was part of the team that
won the National Reporting prize
for a series for which they created
and analyzed a database of civilian
deaths in police custody. Raab
and Resmovits contributed to the
Times’ Breaking News coverage of
the San Bernardino shootings.
But for winners their work and its
impact is the real prize.
Few embody that spirit like
Michael Vitez who was a DJNF
reporting intern in 1978 at
the Virginian-Pilot. He and
photographers April Saul and
Ron Cortes won the Pulitzer for
Explanatory Journalism in 1997 for
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s series
on the choices of people who
wanted to die with dignity. The
work is posted (sans photographs)
on the Pulitzer site.
Mike unless you know their story.
You really need, as a physician, to
have a connection with them. It’s a
simple premise.”
He said he is focusing like a beat
reporter on the human story,
the empathy of the patients, of
the physicians, of the heroism,
heartbreak and passion. This is
not PR for the hospital. He aims
to be fair and honest. His goal is
building a narrative site where the
stories can run. Of the dozen or
so already published, several have
been picked up by other media.
MICHAEL VITEZ
Vitez has led a writing life
at newspapers in Hartford,
Washington and Virginia. Much of
his work at the Inquirer focused on
general features but he gravitated
toward health coverage. Leaving
the Inky after a 30-year career last
fall, he has set off on a new path
as director of Narrative Medicine
at Temple University’s Lewis Katz
School of Medicine.
In a telephone interview, he said
what has guided his life is at the
heart of the new job. He will be a
reporter, he will be a writer-editor
and he will be a teacher.
“It’s really all about story,” he said.
“It is really honoring the story of
illness, recognizing the importance
of stories and patients’ stories in a
world where they so often get lost.”
“The premise is you can’t provide
the optimum care for Linda or
“My goal is reminding people of
the incredible things that go on
here and the great humanity, the
sadness and heartbreak and joy.”
He recognizes medical students
want to write for a variety
of reasons, some owing to
the tremendous pressure of
specializations, enhanced
technology and the intensity
of serving an underserved
population.
“They feel these incredible things
and they want to process it and
they want to think and pause to
process how they feel.”
He noted some of today’s
best-read authors are medical
professionals like Oliver Sacks and
Paul Kalanithi.
Vitez knows about writing books.
His latest, Great Americans Stories