GIVE THE GIFT OF PULSE

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

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

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GIVE THE GIFT OF PULSE

November 2023

Don’t Ever Let Them Break You

21 Comments / Stories /

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

I was a woman in medical school before there were more women students than men—back when women were expected to be more masculine than the men if they wanted to succeed as doctors, back when the idea that we could report our medical-school professors for sexual harassment was just a twinkle in the eye of someone braver and less conflict-avoidant than I was.

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Cherish the Gift

17 Comments / Stories /

It was a perfect autumn day in St. Petersburg, Florida. The year was 1999, but I still remember that day’s sparkly blue sky. I was driving down a busy street, peering at the signs to locate my destination. Finally I spotted the nursing home, a two-story concrete structure, grey and uninviting. I took a deep breath, parked and walked to the entrance.

Entering the small lobby, I was overwhelmed by the nauseating smell of stale urine. To reach the front desk, I had to weave through a jumble of wheelchairs, some holding slouched bodies, others supporting patients who called out and reached to touch me as I walked by.

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A Cascading, it is

4 Comments / Poems /

to watch his memory falter,
               fail. Light fades and falls. Dark
to watch his memory falter –
                             Cans of beans: gone. Toothpaste.
                             A shoe, bills, a sister –
to watch his memory falter,
fail. Light fades, and falls dark.

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His Mother’s Son

15 Comments / Stories /

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

On a crisp Saturday morning in October, I drove through the early morning fog to the salon for my regular hair-coloring appointment.

I looked forward to these appointments. The hour spent there was my “me” time, during which I enjoyed lighthearted conversations with my colorist, Tina, about movies or fashion while she did my hair. These chats, which took me to a different world—the world of normal people—were followed by a cup of rejuvenating herbal tea. After a hard week as an oncologist in a busy clinic, it was a welcome relief.

This time was different, however.

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Alternate Reality

1 Comment / Traumatized /

I meet Paul on a 28-hour ICU shift. He displays his dimpled smile like a badge of honor even though his curly hair sticking to his forehead, his darker-than-usual hospital gown, and his sunken brown eyes tell me that his struggle with complications of esophageal cancer have been vast. Something about Paul’s spirit rewinds the clock.

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Uprooted

Leave a Comment / Traumatized /

It didn’t happen all at once, as I thought it would. But it did happen when they said it would. One afternoon, a few days before my second chemotherapy infusion, I noticed some loose hairs on my computer desk. In the shower that evening, I spotted a bird nest-like cluster on the drain.

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Disposable

16 Comments / Stories /

As a third-year medical student, I was two weeks into my trauma-surgery rotation when my resident casually called me “disposable.” I wasn’t offended—in fact, the word perfectly described how I’d been feeling. I also understood that it was no reflection on my performance; rather, it was a commentary on medical students in general.

Surgery was the first rotation of my third year—and, now that the COVID pandemic was winding down, it was also my first in-person clinical rotation.

I’d never been on the floors of the hospital. I felt clueless, underprepared and incompetent.

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Too Everything to Fit In

4 Comments / New Voices /

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

“Our next one is a new patient who’s here to establish care,” said my family-medicine preceptor, perusing the patient’s chart.

Great, I thought. Seems like this visit will be pretty simple.

My preceptor entered the exam room, and I nonchalantly followed. Then I locked eyes with the patient—a short, middle-aged woman with bronzed skin and a teal-colored headwrap: a hijab.

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