fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Search
Close this search box.

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Search
Close this search box.

November 2019

Irony

“Two men walk into a bar…” You know that joke, don’t you, with its endless variations? The one that is followed by a groan, often told by your beloved dad and uncles? Well, I have a different one to tell.

Two women walked separate routes in life: painful, exhausting, circuitous. One was a model-turned-realtor, the other a doctor. They knew each other once, although they were never friends, and then they were separated by geography and time. They never thought about one another again.

Irony Read More »

Amazing What a Naive Medical Student Can Do

I was a third-year medical student on a scholarship trying to make a few extra bucks in order to survive. So I applied for a job as the overnight lab technician at a local community hospital. My job required that I go to the ER when they called for labs, draw the blood from the patient, take the specimen back to the lab, run the tests, and then go back to the ER and deliver the results. Which was fine.

Amazing What a Naive Medical Student Can Do Read More »

Finding the Words

“So how was your trip?” ask well-meaning friends and coworkers when I return from a medical mission to Engeye Health Clinic, in rural Uganda. Even years after my first trip there, trying to find the perfect words to describe it is a challenge.
I have been involved with Engeye since its founding, more than a decade ago. As the administrative coordinator with Albany Medical College’s department of family and community medicine, I helped a second-year medical student, Stephanie Van Dyke, and a faculty member, Dr. Bob Paeglow, put together a medical-mission trip to the small Ugandan village of Ddegeya. The clinic was to be managed by a visionary accountant named John Kalule (born in Ddegeya) and staffed by visiting US physicians. My role was to recruit the medical teams and handle all of the trip’s logistics.

Finding the Words Read More »

Saying No

I live a “say no” life — as to drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol. Yet on my twenty-first birthday, I deviated from my rule and, with a group of fellow graduate students, sat at a bar and imbibed one celebratory drink after another. I cannot remember what the bar looked like, but I do recall that it was loud — filled with voices and music — and that it got progressively louder with each drink I had. I cannot remember what I wore on that warm August evening in Evanston, Illinois, but I can still feel the clamminess of my skin as the alcohol began to take effect. I also cannot remember how I got back to my apartment; the next morning I found myself atop my bed, my shirt stained with drops of saliva and bits of vomit. 

Saying No Read More »

SunsetonLD

Sunset on Labor and Delivery

“The delivery of a human being is a truly precious miracle–however, labor can be a long and tedious process. Patients and caregivers alike, during this often difficult journey, will frequent the labor lounge of our labor-and-delivery ward and soak in these stunning views. Sunset was always my favorite, and gave me that final burst of energy while going into a long night of laboring with my patients.”

Sunset on Labor and Delivery Read More »

An Editor’s Invitation: Drinking

At my college, if you were male, drinking beer earned you acceptance, admiration and praise. For some reason, drinking many beers and capping it off by violently throwing up was seen as manly.

I’m not much of a drinker, which took its toll on my college status. To this day, I’m happy sharing just one beer with my wife

I don’t consider this a matter of virtue, it’s simply the way I’m wired. Neither of my parents were big drinkers.

Yet in my own life and in my medical practice I’ve seen the impact of alcohol on others.

An Editor’s Invitation: Drinking Read More »

Scroll to Top