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.
The Call
I sink into the plane’s window seat, shade pulled down. My eyelids droop toward sleep. Next to me, headphones in place, my husband catches up on the latest Captain America movie.
I can almost forget that our young son and daughter sit in the row behind us, silent and still, plugged into the iPad for reruns of Good Luck Charlie. They sip the Cokes they never have at home. Together, we fly to Arizona for winter break. After months of working ten- to twelve-hour days as a physician in Connecticut, my body, mind and spirit ache for rest and sunshine.
I hear a distant announcement overhead, and one word grips my attention and snaps my eyes wide open:
Resilience Has a Voice, If We Listen
City of God is more than just a film. It is an unflinching depiction of organized crime in Brazil, as seen through the eyes of Rocket, a young boy who dreams of escaping the violence overwhelming his community, the Rio de Janeiro slum known as Cidade de Deus.
Watching the film as a high-school senior, I was struck by its raw, vivid storytelling and by the brutal realities of the country I call home.
Growing up in a stable Brazilian family, with access to education, health care and opportunity, I was fortunate.
Alice
Lying stuck in my hospital bed during the latest of many hospital stays, I reflected on the drastic turns and changes my life had taken.
For ten years I’d enjoyed a busy, fulfilling life as a pediatrician, educator and writer. Then, in the summer of 2020, my life had lurched from 100 miles per hour to a full stop. I’d become progressively weaker and easily grew winded when walking.
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
Catching Cold
It’s sleeting outside but
I slant through the slashing
Slivers of ice unscathed
An old woman is waiting inside
Saying you’ll catch
Another Husband in the Waiting Room
From the sixth floor of the surgery tower
two blocks from a frozen Lake Michigan,
I can see a small lighthouse but no
Common Cause
Sitting before me
I measure his scars and record the beatings
He is broken
Not just his teeth and back, his will is
