Sharing personal experiences of giving and receiving health care
The Real Me
Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
“What are you?”
It’s impossible to count the number of times I’ve been asked this question, directly or indirectly.
When my family moved to Milwaukee from the South, I was twelve.
One day soon after, I was digging in my locker at Audubon Middle School when a girl named Tammy walked up to me.
Breathless
Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
I was a disaster in fourth grade—too chubby for my Girl Scout uniform, which gapped where it should not have gapped. I dragged my right foot, so I wore orthopedic shoes. My horn-rimmed glasses made me look like a sixtysomething church lady. My jet-black hair with five cowlicks had been partially tamed with a beauty-shop permanent. I was the last chosen for red rover and other recess favorites.
Ten-year-olds know when they are different from their peers. I didn’t want to be different and felt self-conscious. Then came the coup de grâce.
Beyond the EMR
Squeak…Squeak…Squeak….
I stood against a wall in a narrow hallway to avoid blocking a meal cart passing through on its morning voyage. Inside this cart were a series of compartments, each containing a tray bearing a hospitalized patient’s breakfast. My attending physician stood beside me, inspecting a list of patients’ names as the cart rolled past.
Squeak…Squeak…Squeak….
“That’s a good case for a med student,” my attending declared, gesturing at a name on the paper. “Take this one.”
More Voices
Every month readers tell their stories — in 40 to 400 words — on a different healthcare theme.
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
New Voices
Stories by those whose faces and perspectives are underrepresented in media and in the health professions.
Going It Alone
Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
Loneliness can creep up on you like a phantom, slipping its cold hand into yours and offering companionship that is both depressing and alluring—particularly when, looking around, you see nobody else whose face mirrors your own.
It was my first day of residency at a top pediatric program in Boston—a predominantly white program catering to a predominantly white patient population in a predominantly white city.
Scanning the room, I realized that, for the next three years, I would be the only Black person among some thirty-five residents.
“Hey, Uce”
I’ll never forget my shadowing experience in the emergency department during my first year of medical school.
Scanning that morning’s list of patients, I saw a last name that made me do a double-take. A distinctly Samoan name: Mr. Fuaga.
My father’s side of the family came to the States from Samoa before I was born, and I grew up curious about Polynesian culture. My father always taught me to seek out fellow Pacific Islanders in whatever path I pursued, no matter how few of us there might be.
Kindness in the Face of Loss
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
I’ve just received a call from a hospital: An urgent appointment at its fetal-medicine unit has been arranged for me for tomorrow.
I try to get all the critical information.
“Which hospital did you say?” I ask. The medical secretary repeats the name, sounding a little surprised. I haven’t heard of this hospital; but then, I haven’t really heard of any, except for our local one.
Join the 11,000+ who receive Pulse weekly
Sign up to get Pulse delivered to your inbox every Friday or energize your subscription with a tax-deductible donation.
Poems
Quilted
Vit
il
I go.
I loved quilts until I became one.
Neighbor
I first notice the fog, unexpected
on the inside of a windshield,
a question mark
along the run-on sentence of parked cars, and,
with a snap, you are there,
wrapped in a bag in the back
seat with parking patrol on the prowl,
but they’re not so keen, blindly
driving by in a kind ignorance,
and I don’t see you either,
only your warm breath
caught at the glass,
and all I have are commas,
Doctor Becomes Patient
The diagnosis is here
I knew it was coming
But did not think it would arrive this soon
“You’re very young to have it” the doctor said
My bones brittle, already
At age 50
I feel fragile
