Many things frighten me–from creepy-crawlers to turbulence on airplanes, from intravenous needles to walking across bridges over menacing rivers. However, late-night phone calls, especially from my family, send shivers up and down my spine. That is why I froze with fear when I received a call from my parents at 11 p.m. on February 28, […]
Dianne Avey ~ One night on my nursing shift in the cardiac intensive-care unit, I received a new patient from the operating room: an eighty-eight-year-old woman who had suffered a major heart attack and had just undergone emergency coronary-artery bypass surgery. Her bed was wheeled into the room along with the usual accoutrements: six different
Sandra Miller Every evening at dusk As the sun finally shutters its eye, The mosquitos rise and sing Their tiny tuneless song Because mosquitos cannot know They have only a few weeks to live and find us They cannot grasp how we recoil From their delicate voice and touch Our skin surprisingly vulnerable Our blood
Mosquitoes Don’t Know Read More »
David Edelbaum ~ When I finished my medical training, almost sixty years ago, I was like many new graduates: I thought I knew it all. I opened a private office in Los Angeles and paid courtesy calls on the local physicians to let them know my qualifications and my availability for consultation, as both an
It was election night. November 8, 2016. As a southern, affluent, white male from a conservative household I leveled with her: “This election isn’t life or death.”
Tasneem Kaleem About the artist: Tasneem Kaleem is a radiation-oncology resident. “I was always artistically inclined from a young age, engaging in painting, dance and violin. I spent a summer in Rome studying artistic anatomy, which piqued my interest in medicine.” Kaleem’s artwork has been featured in many exhibitions, and recently her pastel work was
Throughout most of my life, I regarded crying as a sign of weakness. Just as men often don’t like to cry, I saw crying as a symbol of sensitivity and fragility. Whenever I found myself needing a good cry, I would lock myself in my room and let it all out–let out the pain,
Universal Act of Emotion Read More »
2010: I’m a 25-year-old premedical student, an herbalist and a volunteer at a free clinic. I’m experiencing unaccountable fatigue, achiness, brain fog and dizziness. After a series of medical evaluations, I receive a dreaded diagnosis–Lyme disease, the same infection that crippled my mother, that I now feel twisting my body and contorting my mind.
First Combat, Then Conversation Read More »
Kristin Beard ~ “Get the patient on the monitor.” “How long has he been down? Someone get on the chest!” “Keep ventilating. He’s in v-fib. Defibrillate at 200.” “Charging, everybody clear?…Shock delivered.” “Resume compressions. Push one of epinephrine…Hold compressions. What rhythm is he in?” “He’s asystole, resume compressions.” We repeat the process a hundred times
Who Would Want to Do This? Read More »
She is now six years old, attending first grade and riding a bike. But six years ago, she was in the NICU, with six chest tubes, a ventilator on its maximum settings, and pulse oximetry readings–which should have been close to a hundred–that were dropping into the sixties. X-rays showed everything in its proper place, but this preemie was
After “All We Could” Read More »
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