Some themes return because the world hasn’t finished with them. Heroes is one of those themes.

When we first explored healthcare heroism in Issue #5, we were thinking about the courage we see every day in patients facing devastating diagnoses, in caregivers who give without being asked, in clinicians who show up long after the glamour of their calling has worn away. We understood healthcare professional burnout long before it became a headline. We knew then — and we know now — that many of the people who sustain our healthcare system are still struggling to find wellness within the very system they serve.

For Issue #19, we are returning to this theme with fresh eyes and a wider lens. We want stories that honor heroism — the child with a brain cancer diagnosis who somehow inspires an entire ward; the nurse who stays through the night with a patient whose family is too far away to come; the home caregiver who hasn’t slept a full night in three years and does it anyway. But we also want stories about exhaustion, moral injury, disillusionment, grief, and the painful question of what happens when the profession — or the role — you love can no longer love you back.

For Healthcare Professionals: We see you — not just the work, but what the work has done to you. We want both.

• What does it mean to keep caring for others inside a system that may not care well for its own?
• Have you ever stayed — at a bedside, in a room, in a role — when everything in you wanted to leave? What kept you there?
• How has burnout, grief, moral injury, or chronic exhaustion shaped the clinician — or the person — you are today?
• Who are the unsung heroes in your world — the CNAs, the transport aides, the unit clerks, the overnight nurses — whose stories rarely get told in full?

For patients, caregivers & loved ones: You don’t have to call yourself a hero to write for this issue

• Who has shown up for you in a way you will never forget — not because it was grand, but because it was quietly, steadily there?
• What does it feel like to be the one who keeps going — through a diagnosis, a hospitalization, a caregiving role that never seems to end?
• Where do you find the will to get up again?
• Has illness changed what heroism means to you? Have you seen it in unexpected places — in a child, a stranger, or yourself?
• When caregiving for a family member — a parent, a partner, a child — what has it cost you? What has it quietly given back?

Whether you are a healthcare professional, patient, caregiver or advocate, family member, or witness to quiet acts of everyday heroism, we want to hear from you.

As always, the theme is a place to begin. These are the stories in all forms–creative nonfiction, short stories, poetry, film, photography and digital art–we are curating for Fall 2026 Issue #19 – Heroes.