I know a lot of people these days are making "trailers" for their books (kind of like a movie trailer but...for a book) but my experience in watching these trailers is that unless you have some professional help and some reasonably high production value, these trailers look...not so good. I have no innate skill at video editing, and all my friends are the wrong kind of nerd, so no help there.
I did want to have some kind of video content leading up to the book release though, so what I came up with is this. We're going to do a web video series. It's going to be interviews (or soliloquies, depending on how adept the subject is at yammering on and on about this that and the other thing) about the medical training process. My goal is to keep these videos light and in the somewhat more humorous vein. I know everyone has their story of that first time a patient that they were taking care of died in some horrible way, but look, the last thing I want to do is post a bunch of depressing videos of heart-rending medical stories that will make everyone suicidal. I want this to be more of a feel-good collection of stories from medical school and residency, more in the funny-slash-humiliating vein. (And we all know that most humiliating stories become funny stories with enough time and distance. MOST.) I'm trying to find people to interview for this video series, but I think to start we'll just go with the easy "gets," meaning me and Joe. Here is my submission:
(Ah, yes, the freeze-frame that You Tube randomly chose is truly unfortunate. "Pull my finger!")
I was trying to find a really good story of humiliation to tell, but all that came to mind was this one, which is somewhat more in the uplifting, we're gonna make it after all vein. But let me keep thinking. I may dredge up a really good embarrassing story yet. Like the time I fell asleep in the front row of Grand Rounds and woke myself up by farting. Yes, that happened.
I'm going to post the videos here and also on the book website so that people can find them easily. My goal, though admittedly a stretch--the video itself was easy enough to film (I just did it with my iPhone) but the editing took a lot of time--is to interview a handful of people so we can get a few different perspectives. I'm just the guinea pig for this project, see--I don't just want a bunch of videos of myself. Maybe down the line we will even set up some way to take submissions, though they will have to be very carefully selected stories for patient privacy issues and of course to keep your clinical reputation relatively pristine. You know, like tell me a story about how you peed in a jar because you didn't have time to go to the bathroom on rounds. Don't tell me how you transected some guy's aorta while you were trying to take out his gallbladder.
Oh, and while you're at it, pre-order the book, will you? It would make my parents super happy.