The Intersection of Work and Friendship

By Janet Gilbert
Journals Direct Response and Renewals Senior Coordinator

Sometimes, you get to work on a journal you just can’t put down. For me,  Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics: A Journal of Qualitative Research (NIB) has been one of those from its inception here at the Press, because of its captivating combination of first-person narratives and substantive research.

About a year ago, after reading the journal’s articles on psychiatric hospitalization in preparation for writing some of its marketing materials, I thought, this is where the rubber meets the road in health care—this is where research meets real life; where technology intersects with humanity.

This became the essence of the messaging for NIB. And ordinarily, that would just be a work thing—one would compartmentalize it, and move on. But that’s not to be my experience, evidently. NIB published an issue this year on living organ donors and, Carla Hubbard, a co-worker, recently underwent a kidney transplant thanks to a living donor. Thankfully, Carla is home resting now, but I shared her story through a column in The (Baltimore) Sun last week.