Taking Charge of Your Career (HBR Women at Work Series)

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When You Need Time Off for Health Reasons

A conversation with Laurie Edwards

There is little guidance out there for communicating a health crisis or chronic illness to your bosses and coworkers. Our private health—what’s happening inside our minds and bodies—is often still invisible to colleagues. When an acute or a chronic health issue disrupts our work life, how do we let our bosses and coworkers know? How vulnerable should we be?

Women at Work cohosts Amy Bernstein and Emily Caulfield posed these questions to Laurie Edwards, a writer, a teaching professor at Northeastern University, and an advocate for people with chronic illnesses. Edwards has had to consider these questions while navigating as a writer with multiple chronic illnesses, ...