In our first week of neonatology, my third-year classmates Jay, Em and I donned PPE and filed like ducklings into an operating room on the birthing unit.
A young woman sat slouched on the operating table, her unbuttoned hospital gown revealing the S-curve in her spine. Her name, we learned, was Elise.
Beside her stood the anesthesiologist, Dr. Lane. He put a hand on her shoulder.
There was the bed bent in half,
the needle in the wrist,
the crack of bathroom light under the door.
Your father tried to sleep in the hospital cot
My interest in women’s health began when, in high school, I became aware of the ongoing genocide in Darfur. Learning about that conflict’s impact on women in terms of sexual trauma and maternal mortality opened my eyes to the depths of inequality that women face in the Global South. This, combined with the fact that I’m a first-generation Nigerian-American, led me to pursue a career in obstetrics and gynecology, with a global-health focus.
The miracle was that this baby had lived at all. His mother called 911 while in labor, with heroin easing her pain and numbing her conscience. The paramedics arrived at the empty warehouse where she’d been living. She delivered her newborn son in a toilet. The paramedics scooped him out, cut his umbilical cord with her razor blade and brought mother and son to our hospital.
The fact that all this took place should be
When a code is called in the hospital, it means two things: A caregiver’s day is about to be turned upside-down, and a patient’s world is about to fall to pieces. If you’re a caregiver, when a code is called you look up from your own work and wonder who’ll be sprinting through the halls and whose story is unfolding.
This time, the story was ours.
A woman’s coin purse
Buried away like an afterthought
In the folds of her body.
But hers is a feral little thing
Throwing away angry outbursts
With the tide of each moon.
It scoffs at being
Belittled and unused
Writing her opinion in bloody letters.
Colette Charles ~
I was a second-year resident, doing a twenty-four-hour shift on maternity care. I’d spent some arduous nights on call with my attending physician, Dr. Campbell; now we sat at the nursing station, joking about what this one might bring.
“You must be a black cloud,” she teased, accusing me of being one of those unfortunate residents who seem to attract medical emergencies. I laughingly protested, but in fact these quiet
Andrea Eisenberg ~
Seeing patients in my ob/gyn office this morning, I try to stave off the mild nervousness rumbling inside of me. My good friend Monica is having a C-section this afternoon, and I’m performing it.
We met ten years ago, when I walked my three-year-old daughter into Monica’s preschool classroom for the first time. Monica sat on the floor, a child in her lap and others playing around her. Like them,
Joe Andrie ~
It’s another day for me as an intern on the labor-and-delivery floor of my large urban hospital–another day scrambling to help pregnant women deliver and trying to keep pace with the unpredictable timetable of the birthing process.
My hospital phone rings. I’m really starting to dread that sound.
It’s the triage nurse. We’re admitting a patient: Mrs. Harris, age thirty-four, who’s had several prior deliveries and therefore carries the
Jordan Grumet
I was a third-year medical student in the first week of my obstetrics rotation. The obstetrics program was known to be high-pressure, its residents among the best. Mostly women, they were a hard-core group–smart, efficient, motivated–and they scared the heck out of us medical students.
I remember the day clearly: Not only was I on call, but I was assigned to the chief resident’s team. I felt petrified.
We’d started morning rounds as
Tricia Pil
Editor’s Note: This week, on the eve of Pulse‘s second anniversary, we offer a remarkable piece. It is the true story of a hospitalization as told from three points of view: first, the recollections of the patient (who happens to be a physician); second, events as recorded in the medical charts by doctors and nurses; and third, the
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