Toxemia of Pregnancy
There was the bed bent in half,
the needle in the wrist,
the crack of bathroom light under the door.
Your father tried to sleep in the hospital cot
Toxemia of Pregnancy Read More »
June 2022
The Struggle of Not Being Able to Do More
It was just another day at the outpatient plastic surgery clinic where I am training as a medical student. A middle-aged man walked in with multiple scars on the back part of both hands. At first glance, they looked like bite marks. On closer inspection, I saw exposed bone. What was I seeing? This didn’t make sense.
The Struggle of Not Being Able to Do More Read More »
Beyond the Number
24,576.
The number alone is staggering. Twenty-four thousand five hundred and seventy-six deaths due to homicide in the United States in 2020, per the CDC estimate. This number, however, leaves out much of the toll of violence, a reality that became clear to me after an experience in clinic one afternoon.
What Do You Want Your Life to Look Like?
In the first months of medical school, we’re taught that patient autonomy should be one of a physician’s guiding tenets. The doctor provides diagnoses, prognoses and treatment plans, but ultimately it’s up to patients to make decisions about their own care.
As a family doctor, I often tell patients: “Only you can know what the right decision is for you. I’m here to provide information and recommendations and then to support your decision.”
But over the past year, as my father’s memory deteriorated and his life drew to a close, I learned about the ways in which our medical system limits patient autonomy.
During his last months, my father said repeatedly, “My brain is in chaos.”
What Do You Want Your Life to Look Like? Read More »
Enough
When I entered elementary school in the 1950s, I practiced hiding under my wooden desk in case a Soviet bomb was dropped on my school. By the time I took early retirement as a teacher in 2003, I was leaving a middle school with a locked-door policy; the principal told us if we ever heard over the loudspeaker that “Mr. Lock” had entered the building, we should immediately lock our classroom doors and gather our students on the floor, away from the windows.