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Paul Gross

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 »

April More Voices: Scars

1 Comment / 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 »

February More Voices: Cold

Leave a Comment / Cold /

Dear readers,

Warren Holleman, one of our More Voices editors, suggested Cold as a theme for February. (Warren lives in Houston–recall the winter storms of February 2021 that crippled the Texas power grid, subjecting millions of households to freezing temperatures and killing hundreds.)

Dana Grossman, our other More Voices editor, jumped on board with Warren’s suggestion. (Dana lives in Vermont–no further explanation necessary.)

February More Voices: Cold Read More »

January More Voices: COVID Redux

7 Comments / COVID Redux /

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 /

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 /

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 »

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