Sharing personal experiences of giving and receiving health care A premier narrative medicine and medical humanities resource
Sharing personal experiences of
giving and receiving health care A premier narrative medicine
& medical humanities resource
During the month of September - Pulse is accepting Poetry submissions.
After the Fall: What Happened Next
I live in a small town on the River Tay in Eastern Ontario. One day, I was exercising at the gym with my husband, Yogi.
I’d just finished my first leg-machine exercise. As I reached for the grungy logbook, the floor suddenly reeled out from under me.
Am I fainting?
I lurched to sit down.
“It’s okay, I’m fine!” I assured those around me. But my sudden disorientation screamed that I was not.
Wounded Souls, a Broken System and Me
I became a psychologist because I wanted to be a healer.
At twenty-five, I believed I could save lives through therapy alone—reach into the chaos of psychosis, pull people back with presence and insight and bring them home to themselves. Not with medication. Not with systems. Just one mind in conversation with another. I’d read the stories—Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Harold Searles, Otto Will. I believed in that kind of power.
Thirty years later, in 1998, I emerged from a Christmas party on Lafayette Street, blinking in the cold, the voices of managed-care executives echoing in my ears.
“Hello, It’s Your Electronic Medical Record Calling”
I’m sitting in the waiting room at my hematologist’s office. Today is bone-marrow biopsy day—the day a drill will penetrate my hip bone to extract a sample.
The road to this moment began several months ago with a routine blood test at my annual exam. The test showed an abnormally high count for one type of blood cell. I was referred to a hematologist for further evaluation. The referral surprised me, but I wasn’t worried—yet.
I endured several more tests to rule out some conditions; however, my hematologist, Dr. Fawcett, has suggested that we move forward with the bone-marrow biopsy to get the full picture.
More Voices
Every month readers tell their stories — in 40 to 400 words — on a different healthcare theme.
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
New Voices
Stories by those whose faces and perspectives are underrepresented in media and in the health professions.
The Distance Between
I was in secondary school in Nigeria when I first noticed the lesion on Uncle Eze’s lip. Like many men of his age in Lagos,
“Teach to Fish for Tomorrow”
It’s a typical Friday night in New Orleans. The streets are brimming with people from all over the world looking for a night of fun
A Different Kind of Different
Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
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Poems
Time & Again
COVID wards 2020-2021
For the sake of the present / let’s just admit that thigh-deep mud & poison gas
Lessons From the Night Sky
It has recently come to your attention that asteroid 2022 AP7 is headed towards the earth. ◙ Despite your attempts at distraction, your mind repeatedly
Infinite Excuses
A long day makes me want to get home, and I’ll have
to explain, again, why I’m late to pick up the kids. The
