May 2024
Another Way to Listen
Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
“David, from this moment forward, you’ll need to listen with your heart.”
It’s been forty years since I heard these words, but they ring as clearly in my mind as if it were yesterday.
My night nurse, Jill, whispered them into my left ear—the only one still able to hear after my fourteen-hour brain surgery to remove a tangerine-sized growth from the acoustic nerve, which affects hearing and balance.
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Over the Rainbow
Two days after the bus crash, I died. It was March 1996. A bus traveling at 60 mph had hit the car I was in, shattering my fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae and instantly paralyzing me from the shoulders down.
I was only twenty years old, and father to a one-year-old son. I spent the following forty-eight hours at a nearby hospital, on life support in the ICU. I couldn’t speak or breathe on my own.
I survived those two days on a sense of faith, expressed in a mantra: This is just temporary.
Everyone Has a Story
A medical student shares a special bond with another person–not a classmate, but a patient. (Story at 1:35; Q&A at 11:00.)
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A Daughter of Vietnamese Refugees
Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
I am a daughter of Vietnamese refugees.
I wear my identity so proudly that I often reflexively lead with this when, as a medical student, I’m introduced to colleagues, professors and supervisors. It is my response when asked, “How will you contribute to diversity?”
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Finding Words
I moved through my work with steady precision. One hundred and eighty-three scripts accomplished, one technician and I, alone on a Saturday. This, plus the order needed to be put away. And the phone kept ringing. And there was a steady stream of questions and counseling on how to use medications correctly.
The Sturgeon
Kind eyes, and a fragile body like a reed
Barely just a presence on the room, as if almost fading
Already into the twilight
Under gentle, careful hands
His body unveils its story with its familiar tells.
The slender wrists, childlike, beneath pitted skin.
Deeply scooped recess above collarbones.
A subtle, solid wedge of liver,
Looming ominously below ribcage.
A Day in the Life of a Psychiatrically Hospitalized Clinician
I am a licensed clinical social worker. And, occasionally, a mental patient. Today, in this inpatient psychiatric unit, I am more a patient than a social worker.
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The Times They Are A-Changin’
In the tiny town where I grew up, we had two pharmacies. Both pharmacists knew you, your family, and what your general medical needs were. If your car wasn’t available—common in those one-car-per-family days—they would run your medicine out to your house at their first opportunity. In an emergency, they would open the pharmacy at night.
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A Life-Sustaining Oasis
The interns and even the pharmacists come and go, but all of them quickly learn to recognize me, since I spend a lot of time at the pharmacy. That is because my prescriptions are never ready to be refilled at the same time. However, I don’t mind what others may see as an inconvenience. It does not bother me to stand in a long line, waiting for my turn.
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