"It is only with the heart that one can see truly, for what is essential is invisible to the eye." So writes Antoine de Saint-Exupery in The Little Prince. Stories can help health professionals and students see with their hearts. Seeing with their hearts allows them to see through the time-efficiency imperatives forged by the funding clawbacks that resulted in the extreme shortages of health providers in Canada. Stories of healthcare can help the public to understand the full human dimension of both patients and health professionals, fostering their better understanding of what patients and health professionals feel and face.

The stories in this collection were encouraged through an invitation to the staff and students of the London Health Sciences Centre, requesting they consider writing a story they carry in their hearts. Fences represent the confines within which patients and health professionals find themselves. Although the stories, plays and poems in this collection are written by the nurses, physicians, physiotherapists, social workers, communication personnel, occupational therapists and trainees in one centre, they are representative of the stories in all Canadian hospitals, and of all Canadian healthcare providers.

This important volume portrays the desire in the hearts of Canadian healthcare providers to give compassionate care to those who need it. It also brings into focus the limitations on both sides of the "fence" for the medical professionals and their patients. The stories in this book resonate with wisdom and honesty and will help validate your concerns with health care and confirm your resolve to push for the need for compassionate care.

Jeff Nisker is a clinician, researcher, university professor, and writer. His plays and short stories bring the general public, health professionals, and policy makers to the position of persons immersed in the social inequities of new scientific capacities. Jeff has received many research grants in the basic, clinical, and social sciences to study prevention of estrogen-related cancer, ethical and social issues in reproductive genetics, and the lack of accommodation that persons with disabilities receive for health promotion. Jeff has also co-held a Canadian Institutes of Health Research/Health Canada grant to research public engagement and citizen deliberation for health policy development through his innovative use of full-length theatre. Jeff has authored or co-authored over 170 peer-reviewed scientific articles and book chapters, many short stories, and seven plays published in the collection From Calcedonies to Orchids: Plays Promoting Humanity in Health Policy. His plays have been performed throughout Canada, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and South Africa. Jeff has served on the editorial boards of Journal of Medical Humanities and ARS Medica and is the international representative on the Board of the Centre for Literature and Medicine. Jeff has served national positions such as Co-chair of Health Canada’s Advisory Committee on Reproductive and Genetic Technologies; Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada; Scientific Officer of the CIHR Peer Review Committee on Health Ethics, Law and Humanities; and Executive of the Canadian Bioethics Society. Jeff has received many research and education awards, including the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada President’s Award for the most significant contribution to the specialty; Western University’s Faculty Scholar’s Award for Innovation in Research and Education; and, for his plays promoting public engagement in health policy, Canada’s Royal Conservatory of Music’s Music Excellence in Education Award, which recognizes the efforts of an outstanding educator who embraces the idea that the arts have a capacity to change the world. He was one of the first two obstetrician-gynaecologists inducted into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Through all this, Jeff has maintained his clinical practice in hormone-dependent malignancy, pituitary tumours, and reproductive endocrinology.

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