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

Pamela Adelstein

Aging in America

1 Comment / Palliative and Hospice Care /

A dentist friend once mused that people should be born with a third set of teeth that would erupt late in life, since our permanent teeth evolved at a time when humans’ life expectancy was shorter and thus they wear in midlife. Imagine the Tooth Fairy visiting us in our sixties!

Since that conversation, I’ve pondered how long our bodies are meant to last. As a family physician, I wonder whether medical advances have set up some body parts to fail prematurely. I’m deeply saddened that societal structures have evolved minimally to keep pace with the way we now age.

Aging in America Read More »

Watching for Survival

5 Comments / A Turn for the Better /

While I was driving to work on a sunny Friday morning many years ago, the opening music for the StoryCorps broadcast streamed from the radio. I raised the volume and listened. A daughter asked her father how he’d made it out of a psychiatric hospital where he received shock treatments. He had been committed for insanity at age 22. He replied simply that he watched television to see how “normal” people acted and mimicked what he saw. Eventually, the staff released him.

The interview ended. I lowered the volume on the radio and reflected on this man’s smarts and the deplorable state of inpatient mental health in the 1960s. And then I started bawling.

Watching for Survival Read More »

Stalemate

2 Comments / Regrets/No Regrets /

Once I looked forward to his visits, but years later I dreaded them. My change of heart began after he was laid off from his janitorial position. He worked diligently, applying desperately for jobs, but the economy was slow, and no one was hiring. The stress of not being able to make ends meet was crushing. His blood pressure rose, and he grew angry and depressed.

Stalemate Read More »

Medication Automation

2 Comments / At the Pharmacy /

I should have said no years ago when the person at the register kindly asked, “Would you like to sign up for auto-refill?” Smiling, I replied, “Sure!” and volunteered my information to be uploaded into their computer.

Back then, this seemed revolutionary. No more remembering to call every month before I was out of pills, no searching my medicine cabinet for the most recent prescription bottle to get the seven-digit number I needed to punch into the phone for a refill. Now I’d never run out of medication!

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Original Scars

Leave a Comment / Scars /

My chest tightens, then relaxes, as the tears roll down her face. She gradually bares her soul, revealing the events that led her to my exam room. She may have been born to a mother whose own experience with trauma stunted her ability to be a supportive parent. She may have suffered abuse at the hands of people who were supposed to be trustworthy. Or she may have experienced the loss early on of the primary person in her life who understood her.

Original Scars Read More »

The Portal

2 Comments / The Biopsy /

“Hello?” I answered the yellow phone with its coiled cord dangling from the kitchen wall. To my surprise, my doctor was calling ME, a seventh grader, with results of my blood tests. (Mono.) I still recall my shock that a doctor – practically a celebrity! – would call my home. Shouldn’t his staff be calling?

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The Greatest Health Care System in the World

1 Comment / Cold /

One might reasonably assume that diabetes testing supplies could be simply obtained. Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) eliminates fingersticks and enables more precise knowledge of sugar levels. Recently insurance denied coverage of CGM supplies for a patient I see. My patient’s blood sugars were higher than last year. My patient was upset about their elevated blood sugars AND their lack of glucose monitoring supplies. I pressed the pharmacy to learn the reason for the denial. Insurance would not cover CGM because the patient’s diabetes control had worsened, which indicated that the CGM did not help lower their blood sugars.

The Greatest Health Care System in the World Read More »

Long Grief

Leave a Comment / COVID Redux /

There used to be much to do. Reciting the Mourners’ Kaddish daily. Making phone calls, waiting on hold, filling out forms, managing the estate. Sorting and donating Dad’s personal goods. Answering panicked phone calls and texts from my mother. Explaining my status as a mourner—taking a year off from dancing at celebrations, declining blindingly joyous events that chafed against my mourning soul. Responding to friends checking in. Processing feelings. And marking all the “firsts”—first Thanksgiving, first Father’s Day, first birthday—without Dad.

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Inner Duality

2 Comments / Tough Calls /

If you have ever been in therapy, you likely discovered that while you share personal details about your life, the therapist reveals little information about theirs. From my understanding, when and what to disclose is part of a therapist’s training. In contrast, in medicine, relatively little about self-disclosure is taught. Instead, it is up to the individual to figure it out on their own.

Inner Duality Read More »

Skin Rash

4 Comments / Bedside Manner /

Being a child of medical parents brings special challenges. For example, such children grow up with a unique idea of appropriate dinner conversation. When I exclaim, “Guess what I saw at work today!” my children interrupt to inquire if my story has blood or something “gross” in it. And they regularly yell, “HIPAA!”—a reference to the federal patient privacy regulations—even though I always deidentify patients.

Skin Rash Read More »

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