The Metagnosis Vignettes – Mary Pan
Mary Pan’s project for the 2024 Jack Straw Writers Program is a collection of lyric essays focusing on themes of mental health, caregiving, identity, and the idea of retrospective diagnosis. In her conversation with curator Nisi Shawl, they discuss the challenges of navigating the healthcare system, the stories she encounters during her medical practice as a physician, and how she came up with the title of her work in progress. “I really like this idea of metagnosis . . . which is this idea of coming to an understanding of a diagnosis after the fact, maybe as an adult. Something that you’ve had your entire life . . . and didn’t realize it until many years after the fact. And what does that mean when you look back on your life and look back on those stories of your lives?”
Music by EarthtoneSkytone, produced in part through the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
