Humanizing Health Care

A 2002 West Virginia University School of Medicine graduate is on a mission to humanize health care.

Dr. Ryan McCarthy, an associate professor at WVU Medicine’s Eastern Campus, created a groundbreaking project, Healthcare is Human, which captures the stories of health care workers and patients across Appalachia. It offers a unique perspective on the challenges and triumphs of the medical profession.

He lives in Martinsburg with his WVU School of Dentistry, class of 2024 alumnus wife Dr. Erica Patthoff and his daughter Eliza, a sophomore at Musselman High School. The family visits Morgantown regularly to spend time with sons Isaac and Liam, both currently enrolled as Foundation Scholars at WVU.

McCarthy, too, was a Foundation Scholar as part of the class of 1994, and after medical school, completed his residency in internal medicine-pediatrics at J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital. The Berkeley Medical Center has been Dr. McCarthy’s professional home for more than 17 years, and he keeps finding new ways to pour into the system that made it all possible.

It was at the Berkeley Medical Center, during the COVID-19 pandemic, that inspiration struck. McCarthy founded Healthcare is Human in 2020 and teamed up with photographer Molly Humphreys, radio producer Kym Mattioli and memoirist Renée K. Nicholson, working to document the experiences of health care workers on the frontlines.

The project, now in its fifth year of development, has expanded to include a podcast, a film, a museum exhibit and a book in the advanced stages of development, with more still to come.

When he first met Nicholson, he said she asked him how long he’d been practicing narrative medicine, a good question from a memoirist.

“I said ‘what the hell is that?’ I say that now with a smile because I was truly ignorant of the discipline of narrative medicine … But I can also say now that I’ve helped to create a new model of it based in West Virginia. I stand on the shoulders of those giants but that’s an urban model. Everything in Health care is Human is built on Appalachian ideals, small towns ideals.”

His passion for storytelling is also rooted in his own experiences as a physician. He said he believes that by understanding the human side of health care we can improve the quality of care, create a more compassionate and patient-centered system and make better doctors.

Not only is McCarthy creating a compelling archive of providers’ and patients’ stories, but he’s also able to put the lessons he’s learning into practice when training new doctors as a dedicated educator and mentor. He is the program director for the Eastern Internal Medicine Residency Program, which recently earned accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

“Health care is Human is a beautiful development that I could not have foreseen in my life,” he said. “But the next phase of my career in Martinsburg is making it a signature part of our residency program. That’s a true surprise and something I never would have envisioned. The artifacts we’re using at this point is our story — all of our assets created by West Virginians. I just think that’s pretty amazing that we are not using text, stories, photographs or things from elsewhere. When we are going to teach and demonstrate what kind of empathy and compassion we learned during the pandemic to new providers, it will be with stories and photos from here.”

McCarthy's efforts to humanize health care are inspiring, and he hopes that Health care is Human will become a model program that can be replicated in other hospitals and clinics.

“My goals are both selfless and selfish,” he said. “Health care is Human started as a humble project but now it’s a movement. I’m going to pour this love and these resources into the Berkeley Medical Center to train and grow the kind of health care culture that I want to live and work in. I wake up with that sense of purpose every day.