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Paul Gross

October More Voices: Disability

1 Comment / Disability /

Dear readers,

When I think of a disability, the image that pops into my head is that of Christopher Reeve, the sturdy, handsome, good-humored actor who played Superman in the movies and then suffered a horseback-riding accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down.

His story is a reminder of how fragile and uncertain health is, and how it can collapse under us at any moment–no matter how gifted or strong, handsome or fortunate we may be.

During my medical career I took care of many people who were disabled, although most of these disabilities didn’t involve wheelchairs or crutches.

October More Voices: Disability Read More »

September More Voices: The Exam Room

Leave a Comment / The Exam Room /

Dear readers,

When I think of an exam room, I picture the spaces I worked in during my thirty-three years as a family doctor. I picture walking into a cramped room whose stark surfaces and bare walls offered little warmth or hint of comfort. I imagine the major piece of furniture, an exam table, covered with a white paper that audibly crinkles at the slightest touch.

I picture the guest of honor, my patient–who surely does not feel like a guest of honor in these surroundings. They’ve been waiting for ten, twenty or thirty minutes–and sometimes longer–for my knock and my entrance.

September More Voices: The Exam Room Read More »

August More Voices: Awaiting a Diagnosis

Leave a Comment / Awaiting a Diagnosis /

Dear readers,

It was autumn, and I had just started medical school at the advanced age of thirty. I’d always been in good health, so when my symptoms first appeared, I was sure they couldn’t be anything serious.

The first hint of a problem came in the middle of a seminar, when I had to leave the room to urinate. It struck me as a little odd. The next time the seminar met, I used the bathroom beforehand, just to be on the safe side, but it didn’t help. Halfway through I had to excuse myself again.

Hunh.

August More Voices: Awaiting a Diagnosis Read More »

July More Voices: Loss

1 Comment / Loss /

“I’m a fool,” Jack Kerouac writes in Visions of Cody, “the new day rises on the world and on my foolish life: I’m a fool, I loved the blue dawns over racetracks and made a bet Ioway was sweet like its name, my heart went out to lonely sounds in the misty springtime night of wild sweet America in her powers, the wetness on the wire fence bugled me to belief, I stood on sandpiles with an open soul, I not only accept loss forever, I am made of loss…”

Dear readers,

Loss is a fact of life. In fact, one might argue that this life itself is a prelude to loss.

The first big loss I experienced was the death of my surrogate grandmother, Mrs. Slattery.

July More Voices: Loss Read More »

June More Voices: Hospitalized

Leave a Comment / Hospitalized /

Dear readers,

I was just a few months into my first year of medical school when I got sick–feeling crummy, drinking glass after glass of water or orange juice, and peeing a lot. I ignored these symptoms for as long as I could, but finally had to admit that something was wrong and made my way to our student health service, where, on a Friday afternoon, I was given the diagnosis of diabetes and sent home, unmedicated.

The following Monday I was seen by an internist who quickly realized that, despite my age–thirty–I had juvenile-onset (type 1) diabetes. My pancreas was no longer producing the insulin my body needed. That meant that I would need to inject insulin. Forever.

June More Voices: Hospitalized Read More »

May More Voices: Immigrants

Leave a Comment / Immigrants /

Dear readers,

I am the son of immigrants. My mother lived through the Nazi occupation of Belgium and came to the US after World War II.

My father left Cuba in the 1930s. He was active in a pro-democracy group, and when Batista’s secret police came looking for him, he decided that if he wanted to live, he needed to leave.

They both had accents, each one different. Because of what they’d experienced up close, they were both committed to democracy and fiercely proud of their adopted country.

As a family physician in the Bronx, when I looked at many of my patients, I saw my abuela or abuelo–my dad’s parents, who immigrated to the US too late in their lives to learn English or ever feel quite at home here.

May More Voices: Immigrants Read More »

April More Voices: Diversity

3 Comments / Diversity /

Dear readers,

I grew up in a segregated neighborhood–not in Alabama or Mississippi, but in New York City. Stuyvesant Town, a coveted Manhattan location where I spent my youth, was built for veterans–white veterans–after World War II. It did not offer apartments to Black families until the mid-1960s.

When I was a boy, the area below Fourteenth Street, now the desirable East Village, was home to recent immigrants from Puerto Rico. Friends of my parents shook their heads when discussing that community and “those people,” who I grew leery of.

April More Voices: Diversity Read More »

March More Voices: Dementia

1 Comment / Dementia /

Dear readers,

Our first inkling of trouble came when Maman, my Belgian mother, got lost en route to our house. After my father died, Maman had been living alone in a New Jersey apartment, and she would periodically drive across the George Washington Bridge to come visit us.

One day she didn’t arrive on schedule. After an hour had passed and we were growing frantic, the phone rang.

“I’m at a restaurant,” Maman said.

“Which one?”

“The one we always go to,” she said.

March More Voices: Dementia Read More »

February More Voices: Bravery

9 Comments / Bravery /

Dear Readers,

It’s winter of my senior year of college. I’m returning to my dorm one afternoon and am startled to see its three-story brick edifice almost hidden beneath a blizzard of bedsheets, banners and placards. Is this some kind of celebration?

Drawing closer, I make out the bold letters on  these makeshift signs: “NO CO-EDS IN SAGE,” “KEEP CO-HOGS OUT.”

This isn’t a party; it’s a protest.

February More Voices: Bravery Read More »

January More Voices: Grit

1 Comment / Grit /

Dear Pulse readers,

When I think of grit, I think of someone who perseveres–and sometimes triumphs–in the face of hardship.

When I was nineteen years old I hitchhiked alone across the US and back. Was that grit? Or was it teenage wanderlust and foolhardiness?

Making my way through medical school certainly involved hardship–and I persevered. Was it grit that got me through, or was it a fear of failing?

January More Voices: Grit Read More »

December More Voices: Birth

3 Comments / Birth /

Dear readers,

My wife’s labor with our first child did not go as planned. We took childbirth classes, and like every other couple, we hoped for a birth experience worthy of a Hallmark card: manageable pain, minimal drugs and a supportive partner–in this case me, a family-medicine resident, whose comforting presence and able coaching would smooth over any rough patches.

Fast forward a few weeks: It’s D-Day. Diane is exhausted, having endured forty-eight hours of labor, the last twenty hours of which have been unbearably painful.

December More Voices: Birth Read More »

November More Voices: Recovering

Leave a Comment / Recovering /

Dear readers,

I’m still recovering from my diagnosis of type 1 diabetes forty years ago. The recovery involves daily injections of insulin, a continuous glucose monitor affixed to my upper arm and a hovering awareness of where my blood sugar is at any moment and which way it’s headed.

Recovering isn’t just about getting over an operation or a brief illness, although life does offer us some quick recoveries: At age five I got over my tonsillectomy in a week or two; and, luckily for me, my bout of COVID last winter left no lasting effects.

November More Voices: Recovering Read More »

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