About

AWCL began with one doctor's habit.

Robert Rodvien spent four decades as a hematologist-oncologist explaining medicine to frightened people.

What he never wrote down was his method: why one version of a sentence landed and another didn't.

AWCL is an attempt to write that method down.

A record of where understanding broke down.

AWCL draws on Robert Rodvien's writing for his patients: guides for people living with cancer, and a book-length manuscript on cancer and anxiety.

He wrote it himself, as the doctor in the room.

One question was being checked. The other wasn't.

Making material to a cancer center's specifications split one question into two: what a piece says, and whether the piece is built for the state the person holding it is in.

Patient education videos, built for a frightened viewer.

Each finished video is scored with AWCL, on the same five dimensions as everything else.

The script

Ordered so the fear is met before the instructions begin.

The finished video

Pace, voice, picture and silence, each decided on purpose.

The score

The same five dimensions, reported with every check behind them.

One doctor's skill in a room can't be bought, audited or held to.

Robert could only do it for one family at a time, in person.

A score can be run on anything, compared across a library, and argued with by anyone who thinks it's wrong.

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Dedicated to David, Rayna, and Robert.