Paul Gross, Author at Pulse

April More Voices: Scars

Dear readers,

My physical scars are hardly worth mentioning. I have a scar on my back where a surgeon removed a lipoma–a fatty lump the size of a golf ball–twenty years ago. On my abdomen, I have a few smaller, more recent scars from laparoscopic prostate surgery.

I’m lucky. The scars don’t bother me. Hardly anyone notices them. And if I’m wearing a bathing suit, the appearance of a scar on a man suggests something heroic–a wound inflicted in battle–rather than a sign of vulnerability or an imperfection that detracts from physical beauty.

Others aren’t so fortunate.

April More Voices: Scars Read More »

March More Voices: The Biopsy

1 Comment / The Biopsy / Paul Gross

Dear Readers,

My dear, departed prostate was the cause–and the victim–of several biopsies.

Before the first one, I consulted with friends and family members. Turns out that a surprising number of men over fifty have had prostate biopsies–who knew? (Men don’t talk about this much.)

March More Voices: The Biopsy Read More »

February More Voices: Cold

January More Voices: COVID Redux

7 Comments / COVID Redux / Paul Gross

Dear Pulse readers,

That’s my COVID test from a couple of weeks back. After I’d dodged the virus for three years, it finally caught up with me–disabusing me of any notion that I was somehow more robust, more careful or perhaps cleverer than everyone else who’d come down with COVID.

COVID made me feel crummy–achy, feverish and tired–and without any desire to eat.

My doctor prescribed Paxlovid, and I took it.

January More Voices: COVID Redux Read More »

December More Voices: A Ray of Hope

2 Comments / A Ray of Hope / Paul Gross

Dear Pulse readers,

It was December. I was three months into my first year of medical school, and I wasn’t feeling right. I’d been incredibly thirsty for the past few weeks and been peeing an awful lot.

When I finally decided to get myself checked out at the student health service, the news wasn’t good: I was told I had diabetes. Not just diabetes, but type 1 diabetes, the kind they used to call juvenile onset. My body had stopped making insulin, and I would need to start injecting it.

December More Voices: A Ray of Hope Read More »

November More Voices: Traumatized

2 Comments / Traumatized / Paul Gross

Dear Pulse readers,

This month’s More Voices theme is Traumatized. Today, as I write this, entire populations in Israel and Gaza are experiencing trauma. And friends and relatives of Palestinians and Jews in other parts of the globe are being traumatized from afar, as they hear heartbreaking news of injury and death.

Even those without personal connections to Israel or Gaza may be triggered by stories of families being ravaged by bullets and bombs.

As I thought about writing an introduction to this month’s theme, I couldn’t help but reflect that I’ve led a sheltered life.

November More Voices: Traumatized Read More »

October More Voices: Tough Calls

3 Comments / Tough Calls / Paul Gross

Dear Pulse readers:

When I was about twenty years old and living in New York, I wandered into a men’s clothing store on Canal Street. There, an army jacket caught my eye. I liked it right away. It was stylish–in a counterculture-rebel sort of way–and I decided to try it on.

It fit perfectly.

The only problem was, it cost more than I wanted to spend.

October More Voices: Tough Calls Read More »

September More Voices: Bedside Manner

5 Comments / Bedside Manner / Paul Gross

Dear Pulse readers,

I was a medical student, nearing the end of my very first clinical rotation–surgery–and I’d had enough.

I’d made a breast-cancer patient weep as I’d unsuccessfully tried to extract blood from an artery in her wrist.

September More Voices: Bedside Manner Read More »

August More Voices: Heat

July More Voices: Pills

June More Voices: Alone

1 Comment / Alone / Paul Gross

Dear Pulse readers,

One autumn evening when I was twenty-two years old, I boarded a bus in New York’s Port Authority bus terminal and headed off with my guitar. Dreams of musical success swirled in my head–new songs I would write, places I would perform–and beckoned me forward.

Over the next several months, I pulled into towns where I knew no one (Columbus, Indianapolis, Cincinnati) and took up a solitary existence. I’d find a cheap place to stay and spend my days alone, waiting for inspiration to strike, practicing the guitar and scoping out places I might play.

June More Voices: Alone Read More »

May More Voices: Coming Undone

Leave a Comment / Coming Undone / Paul Gross

Dear Pulse readers,

In my work as a physician, I sometimes see patients whose bodies have come undone. It happens. But in truth, I spend far more time reassuring patients that their bodies have not come undone.

That lump is not a cancer.

Your headache is not a brain tumor.

May More Voices: Coming Undone Read More »

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

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

Paul Gross

April More Voices: Scars

March More Voices: The Biopsy

February More Voices: Cold

January More Voices: COVID Redux

December More Voices: A Ray of Hope

November More Voices: Traumatized

October More Voices: Tough Calls

September More Voices: Bedside Manner

August More Voices: Heat

July More Voices: Pills

June More Voices: Alone

May More Voices: Coming Undone

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

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

Paul Gross

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