Sharing personal experiences of giving and receiving health care
September Third Year
Today a patient died. Jake was forty years old. When he came into the emergency room, Jake was dying of sepsis. I gave him some pain medication, and he just slipped away. I did try to save him. As his blood pressure dropped, I ran fluids and antibiotics. I put his head down to keep blood flowing to his brain. I ordered labs and an X-ray and an EKG.
I had taken care of Jake several times during his previous hospitalizations. He was sweet, but tired. He was blind from diabetes, and his irises were gray-white. I think he shut his eyes as he died, but I can’t quite remember.
Letter From the Dead
Gross Anatomy class is a rite of passage, and has been so for a few hundred years. Generations of first-year medical students have spent months dissecting cadavers and painstakingly learning the intricacies of human anatomy.
I well remember my first day of class—the overpowering smell of formaldehyde and the unnerving sight of a roomful of twenty-five dead people lying supine, their faces and genitals covered, on metal tables.
Assigned by the alphabet, four students to a cadaver, my peers and I (Fabert, Ferris, Flamm and Fleming—my maiden name) stood gingerly next to our cadaver, careful not to get too close. We shifted uneasily. Touching our cadaver (a woman) for the first time, even with gloves on, was disquieting.
Finding the Upside
Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
Being different is often viewed as bad. At a young age, I learned that it meant you didn’t belong. I vividly remember watching the Sesame Street puppets dance and sing about an object that “didn’t belong” because it was “not like the others.”
Throughout my school years, I tried hard to fit in. Being overweight, and as uncoordinated as they come, I constantly felt out of place in my body and among my peers. I remember trying so hard to make people laugh, to win them over.
More Voices
Every month readers tell their stories — in 40 to 400 words — on a different healthcare theme.
Palliative and Hospice Care
September 2024
A Turn for the Better
August 2024
Trans
July 2024
New Voices
Stories by those whose faces and perspectives are underrepresented in media and in the health professions.
“Hey, Uce”
I’ll never forget my shadowing experience in the emergency department during my first year of medical school.
Scanning that morning’s list of patients, I saw a last name that made me do a double-take. A distinctly Samoan name: Mr. Fuaga.
My father’s side of the family came to the States from Samoa before I was born, and I grew up curious about Polynesian culture. My father always taught me to seek out fellow Pacific Islanders in whatever path I pursued, no matter how few of us there might be.
Kindness in the Face of Loss
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
I’ve just received a call from a hospital: An urgent appointment at its fetal-medicine unit has been arranged for me for tomorrow.
I try to get all the critical information.
“Which hospital did you say?” I ask. The medical secretary repeats the name, sounding a little surprised. I haven’t heard of this hospital; but then, I haven’t really heard of any, except for our local one.
Treasuring Our Differences
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
I dread visits to the gynecologist. Even though I’m a healthcare professional myself—studying to become a physician assistant after years as a clinical-research coordinator—I struggle with the prospect of the impending visit on a deeply personal level.
The crinkly gown, the pressure of the cold speculum and the pinch of the tiny brush that scrapes the cervix. A pap smear was bad enough when I identified as a woman—but as a nonbinary person with gender dysphoria, these visits act as a reminder that I was born into a body I don’t identify with, and I find visits to my gynecologist unbearable.
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Poems
Neighbor
I first notice the fog, unexpected
on the inside of a windshield,
a question mark
along the run-on sentence of parked cars, and,
with a snap, you are there,
wrapped in a bag in the back
seat with parking patrol on the prowl,
but they’re not so keen, blindly
driving by in a kind ignorance,
and I don’t see you either,
only your warm breath
caught at the glass,
and all I have are commas,
Doctor Becomes Patient
The diagnosis is here
I knew it was coming
But did not think it would arrive this soon
“You’re very young to have it” the doctor said
My bones brittle, already
At age 50
I feel fragile
Chronic Illness
He’s sick again.
It’s a major production
getting him to the doctor’s office.
Dressing a paraplegic,
loading the wheelchair,
strapping it down in the van.
Leaving an hour early, just in case.
Always prepared,
I take along a packed bag,
half for him, half for me.
Because you just never know.
