Bears, Uncertainty and Other Things That Scare Us
Rachel Weaver is interested in the places where certainty falls apart. In the wilderness. In the exam room. In the stories we tell about ourselves. Drawing on her work as an Alaskan field biologist, author, teacher, and patient, she explores what it takes to navigate uncertainty—and how storytelling can change the way we see ourselves and one another.
Most Requested Talks
What Clinicians Can Offer When They Can't Offer a Diagnosis
What happens when a patient has real symptoms but no clear diagnosis? Drawing on her own 18-year journey through the medical system with a mysterious illness and recent research on how clinicians communicate diagnostic uncertainty, Rachel Weaver explores what patients need when answers remain elusive. Sometimes the most healing words a clinician can offer are simply: “I don’t know yet, but we’re going to keep working on this together.” This talk offers practical ways to find that middle ground of clinical communication where clinicians don’t feel they’ve failed, patients feel heard and seen, and a genuine connection can become a powerful form of healing—even when the diagnosis remains out of reach.
Fish Stories, Dentists and Who Drives the Boat
The years Rachel Weaver spent living and working in the Alaskan backcountry taught her what she needed to know about surviving life as a writer. Through funny, unforgettable stories of lies, bad times in bush planes, questionable dentists, poor decisions, and a very long road to publication, she shares what wilderness and large animals with claws taught her about patience, courage, specificity, and creative persistence. At the heart of the talk is a simple challenge: spend less time worrying about the book you hope to publish and more time discovering the book you’re actually writing. Weaver offers practical, hard-won advice for getting unstuck, taking creative risks, and staying connected to the process when the product feels impossibly far away. Because the measure of a writer isn’t the current draft—it’s the willingness to keep going.
Living With Uncertainty: Rethinking Hope When There’s No Clear Ending
When we first become patients, we often imagine illness as a linear story: symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, recovery. But what happens when there is no clear diagnosis, no predictable recovery, or no tidy ending? Drawing on her own experience of living with chronic illness and years of medical uncertainty, Rachel Weaver explores how we can make meaning—and make room for that sticky thing called hope—when certainty and resolution remain out of reach. Rather than asking, “How do I stay hopeful?” she invites us to ask, “What can hope look like here?” This talk offers a different way of understanding hope: not as a promise that everything will turn out well, but as a way of continuing to live, connect, create, and imagine a meaningful future in the midst of uncertainty.