Medical trauma is increasingly recognized for its long-term psychological and physical harms. Yet one critical moment in the patient’s journey remains largely unexamined: the return to care. Patients reenter medical spaces carrying not just fear and uncertainty, but often unprocessed trauma from prior encounters. Their experience of reengagement is structurally invisible. Despite emerging scholarship on trauma-informed care and the impact of medical harm, no research directly studies the moment of return. This capstone addresses that gap, arguing that the return to
care is both a critical inflection point and an opportunity for healing or re-traumatization. This project analyzes the experiences of medical trauma and the return to care through the biosocial lens, then recounts previous interventions tangential to these experiences. Finally, a narrative
nonfiction intervention is suggested to illustrate the complexity of the return to care and begin to fill that crucial gap in the patient’s journey. This paper argues that by recognizing what has been invisible, empathy, research, and change may improve care for patients who have been negatively impacted by medical experiences, especially when they return.
