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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Paul Gross

April More Voices: Diversity

2 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 »

October More Voices: Getting Motivated

2 Comments / Getting Motivated /

Dear readers,

A good part of my career as a doctor was spent trying to motivate patients to do what was good for them, like eating more fruits and vegetables, getting exercise or remembering to take their pills.

Most patients wanted to do the right thing–go to the gym, stop smoking and get their diabetes under control. They felt bad about themselves for not doing better.

With that in mind, I didn’t think it was productive to lecture them and make them feel even worse. I thought they’d be more likely to get motivated if they felt hopeful and positive–so I did my best to offer some understanding and encouragement rather than criticism.

October More Voices: Getting Motivated Read More »

September More Voices: Palliative and Hospice Care

5 Comments / Palliative and Hospice Care /

Dear readers,

My thoughts and feelings about palliative and hospice care took hold during medical school and residency training.

I was a medical student during the AIDS epidemic of the mid-1980s, when our Bronx hospital admitted a succession of patients infected with HIV, a virus that compromised their immune systems and made them vulnerable to a host of infections.

They came to the emergency room short of breath, feverish, somnolent, unable to see properly, convulsing, soiling themselves with intractable diarrhea…The list of possibilities was long and scary.

These patients, invariably young, were all going to die.

September More Voices: Palliative and Hospice Care Read More »

August More Voices: A Turn for the Better

Leave a Comment / A Turn for the Better /

Dear readers,

In old movies, a greying, bearded physician arrives in the middle of the night to tend to a desperately ill family member. If the film has a happy ending, the doctor emerges from the sick room a few scenes later to solemnly pronounce, “The fever has broken.”

In my years as a physician, I would sometimes see those sudden turns for the better: A woman admitted to the hospital with a raging kidney infection responded to a few doses of antibiotic; a man with congestive heart failure whose shortness of breath went away after an intravenous infusion of a diuretic; a child who was happily eating breakfast two days after surgery for acute appendicitis.

It’s wonderful to see symptoms resolve with a medical intervention. But in my experience, many turns for the better are more nuanced.

August More Voices: A Turn for the Better Read More »

July More Voices: Trans

1 Comment / Trans /

Dear readers,

I adapt slowly to new things. I’m skeptical of new technologies, the latest fashions and the most recent fads. While I like to think of myself as progressive when it comes to matters of politics and social justice, the truth is my gut is often conservative about interpersonal matters and the stuff of daily life.

So in recent years, I’ve been astonished at the rapidity with which something that was invisible when I was growing up–a person changing their gender–has become commonplace.

July More Voices: Trans Read More »

June More Voices: Regrets/No Regrets

1 Comment / Regrets/No Regrets /

Dear readers,

Edith Piaf, the powerful, diminutive French singer, had a worldwide hit with a song entitled “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien,” translated as “No Regrets.” It was a philosophy that my Belgian mother took to heart, resisting any and all invitations to reexamine past actions in light of actual outcomes and acquired wisdom.

It takes some vulnerability to express regrets. Living with constant regret is a recipe for misery, but expressing regrets can bring us closer to one another, as regrets are a part of life–at least for most of us.

June More Voices: Regrets/No Regrets Read More »

May More Voices: At the Pharmacy

3 Comments / At the Pharmacy /

Dear Readers,

When I was a first-year medical student, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes–and soon found myself a frequent visitor at a mom-and-pop Bronx pharmacy just a block from the medical school.

Kind and efficient Mr. Tepper, the pharmacist, dispensed my insulin, my syringes and my glucose test strips. As I made the rude transition from excellent health to chronic illness, it softened the blow that the man handing me my lifesaving supplies knew my name, was aware of my sad tale and made sure that I didn’t run out of anything.

May More Voices: At the Pharmacy Read More »

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