Defining Moments podcast shares stories about finding meaning following adversity

For Joe Bianco, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Social Medicine at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, storytelling isn’t just an art form—it’s a vital tool for understanding, connection and healing. As co-host of the “Defining Moments” podcast, Bianco has helped share stories from across the fields of health, medicine and communication to a growing audience, bridging academic insight with authentic lived experience.

The “Defining Moments” podcast is an outgrowth of the “Defining Moments” feature series in the academic journal Health Communication. The essay series was launched in 2009 by Lynn Harter, Ph.D., co-director of the Barbara Geralds Institute for Storytelling and Social Impact. The original goal, Bianco explained, was “to elevate lived experiences-that could provide templates for how people, either scholars, activists or really anyone, could make sense of different things in life like inequities, how they face trauma, how they’ve dealt with health inequities, their careers.”

After a decade of publishing these powerful narratives in print, Harter extended the concept to audio in 2019, launching the “Defining Moments” podcast. The show gives listeners an intimate seat at the table as guests share how they’ve found meaning through adversity or purpose in their professional lives.

Bianco first appeared as a guest in Season 2, sharing the personal story of his son’s experience with illness and cancer. Harter invited him to join as co-host and co-producer in 2022.

“We don’t do a lot by way of editing or any kind of bells and whistles,” Bianco said. “This isn’t NPR. We want to invite listeners to just be at the table with us as we have a conversation about people’s stories and the ways that they’ve found to write the next chapter.”

Bianco, Harter and sound engineer Colin Cameron speak more extensively about the history, production, distribution and impact of the podcast in an article they co-authored for Health Communication.

“As a co-host of ‘Defining Moments,’ Joe invites openness and trust. His thoughtful questions, gentle pacing and deep listening help guests feel seen and supported, allowing their reflections to unfold naturally and authentically. What stands out most is Joe’s ability to balance empathy with insight. He doesn’t rush or steer conversations toward resolution; instead, he honors the complexity of each guest’s experience, creating a relational space where meaning-making feels shared rather than extracted,” said Harter. “Through this presence, Joe models what compassionate communication can sound like in practice. His contributions to ‘Defining Moments’ extend beyond the microphone: Joe helps transform each episode into a moment of connection, where listeners, too, feel invited into reflection and growth.”

A Different Kind of Podcast

What sets “Defining Moments” apart is its deep connection to scholarship. About two-thirds of the guests featured on the podcast also publish companion pieces in Health Communication. This unique link between academia and storytelling helps bridge the gap between research and real life.

“I do a lot of research on the guests,” said Bianco. “I create an interview schedule based on everything I’ve read about this person, what I can sense of their values and what the story is that they want to tell.”

One interview that has stayed with him was with a health communication scholar who suffered a massive stroke at age 39, suddenly finding herself living the very research she had once conducted. Her recovery and ongoing advocacy for patient safety revealed profound new insights she’d gained from her perspective as a patient.

Another recent podcast centered on Behind the White Coat, an annual storytelling event at the Heritage College co-sponsored by the Storytelling Institute. The event invites students, faculty, staff and physicians to share personal stories, giving a glimpse into “who is behind the white coat.”

Bianco said it’s an unusual but valuable forum allowing medical students and physicians to share something about themselves.

“It’s important to let them be seen and known as unique and individual human beings aside from their qualifications and their roles in taking care of people,” he said. “It’s an amazing opportunity for people to really get to know each other – people we’ve known for years, but in a different way. I think in the act of people telling their stories and the act of an audience receiving those stories, something bigger is created.”

This year’s event was even more poignant as Mark Loudin, a Heritage College colleague who was battling terminal cancer, was honored, and his wife, Jill Harman, shared a story.

Why Stories Matter

Asked what value “Defining Moments” offers to audiences across higher education and health care, Bianco cited literary theorist Kenneth Burke saying stories are “equipment for living.”

“By hearing other people’s stories, we not only learn different ways, different avenues or explore different worlds that we wouldn’t have otherwise known, but we learn a different way of thinking about our own stories,” he said. “We often reach areas where we don’t see a way out. And a lot of the stories on the podcast show us ways out or they illuminate things that people have done creatively to mobilize in seemingly helpless situations.”

He pointed to an episode featuring Allyson Hughes, Ph.D., an assistant professor, health psychologist and diabetes researcher at the college. During the podcast, Hughes, who has Type 1 diabetes, shared the important role social media played in giving her a sense of community as she was growing up. She also talked about the mobilization of communities to ensure people have insulin when they need it during shortages or when prices skyrocket.

“These stories,” Bianco said, “open up worlds, not only into places we may not necessarily encounter, but into solutions that we may not necessarily think of in our own stories.”

For Bianco, the value of storytelling in medicine and people’s lives is clear.

“Stories heal,” he said. “Stories in medicine, in medical education and in the medical profession really have the capacity to humanize medicine, not just for patients, but for providers as well. And I think the more we share our stories, the more platforms we have to publicize them and the more stories are taken seriously in professional circles, the better we are going to be.”

The “Defining Moments” podcast continues to release new episodes in partnership with the Health Communication journal and the Barbara Geralds Institute for Storytelling and Social Impact. Season 4 recently wrapped, with plans for Season 5 already underway.