2023

One winter night, when I was a child, I kept asking for TUMS and spiked a fever. Intense pain shot through my body. My stomach felt hard as a rock. Our family physician rushed from his house nearby to check on me. Using a few tools from his medical bag, Dr. Hart performed an assessment.

My patient complains of chest pain a few days ago while mowing the lawn. He has no chest pain today, but his story is so good I decide to order an EKG, bloodwork, and some other tests. I start running the differential diagnosis algorithm in my mind; sometimes, a patient history is all I need to make a diagnosis.

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.

Earlier this year, my beloved family practice doctor retired. Over many years, I had had ample opportunity to appreciate his diagnostic skill, his professionalism and his kindness. Moreover, I felt I could always trust that he would respect my wishes. I had a real partner in my health care.

Ma lived a blessed life: more than six decades of marriage, two professionally successful children (a physician and a teacher), and three wonderful grandchildren. Yet, these gifts mattered less to her than her forty years working in a baby/children’s store. When health issues forced her to retire at age eighty-two, she lost her heart and her spirit. Ma spent the days in her old recliner, wearing only a tattered white T-shirt and equally torn white underwear. She only got up to use the bathroom and wander the halls of her apartment building at night.

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.