pediatrics – Pulse

Caught in the Crossfire

Annie Laurie Gula May 31, 2022 4 Comments

I’ll call him Rocky. In a drive-by incident, his father was killed, and Rocky, age one, was shot multiple times.

His initial resuscitation was heroic—he received medicines to support his blood pressure, underwent emergency surgeries and was still attached to machines to support his breathing—but by the time I met him, the drama of his shooting had receded: He and his medical team had settled into a stable routine.

Though I suspect that the team had

The Wizard and I

Rita Sloan August 6, 2021 15 Comments

He’s wearing a Yankees T-shirt, an EpiPen holstered to his belt like a lightsaber. We’re old friends. Trevor has been my patient for four years—more than half his life.

This will be our last visit: After forty years, I’m retiring.

Dear Worried Mother

Pamela Adelstein July 16, 2021 8 Comments

I can’t stop thinking about you.

Last night, at about midnight, the phone aroused me from my happy slumber. It was Vance, the on-call resident, needing advice from me, as the supervising physician, on how to help a worried mother—you—who’d called our family health center’s after-hours service about your daughter’s worsening asthma.

The Other Public-Health Emergency

Kati Eisenhuth July 6, 2021 2 Comments

It was March 2020, and COVID was coming. The virus hadn’t yet reached my small suburban community in Pennsylvania, but already businesses were waning, streets were emptying, clinics were closing. Fear was widespread.

A collective refrain sounded: “Shut it down”—the university, the restaurants and, most of all, the public schools.

Sounding the Alarm

Erin McCoy March 6, 2020 6 Comments

For most medical students, the fourth year is a time of coming into our own. We’ve completed our clinical clerkships, passed our first board exam and begun applying to residencies in our hoped-for specialties.

We also get our first taste of independence as clinicians.

Holiday Concert

Wynne Morrison December 20, 2019 4 Comments

The door opens, we pause again.
Voices singing in the lobby drown out
her parents and the specialists alike.
I think they added bells this year,
the cheerful carols carefully chosen
to celebrate the season, not a faith.
A guitar picks up a riff, the same
one my daughter played so long ago
in her one embarrassed solo
on the school stage. A song both

Fighting the Odds

Evelyn Lai November 10, 2017 18 Comments

Evelyn Lai ~

Monday

I walk into your room in the pediatric intensive-care unit as two nurses are repositioning you. Your parents stand nearby–your dad in his frayed baseball cap and khaki cargo shorts; your mom, her baggy jeans wrinkled with the same worry as the lines near her eyes. Your little sister sits near the window with a blue hospital mask over her mouth, hugging her knees; Grandma sits snug beside her, back

After “All We Could”

Anonymous July 3, 2017 No Comments

She is now six years old, attending first grade and riding a bike.

But six years ago, she was in the NICU, with six chest tubes, a ventilator on its maximum settings, and pulse oximetry readings–which should have been close to a hundred–that were dropping into the sixties. X-rays showed everything in its proper place, but this preemie was failing fast.

Patient Belongings

Wynne Morrison June 9, 2017 3 Comments

Wynne Morrison

A man a few feet ahead of me
is pulling a rolling carry-on,
a clear plastic “belongings” bag tied
to the top by a white drawstring.

I can’t resist a glance in the bag,
like a stranger who wonders about lives
in the elevator or grocery line.
It holds some clothes, playing cards,

the ordinary things. And lying on its side
is a

Withering Away on the Outside

Joseph Tadros June 7, 2017 No Comments

You are an angel, undeserving of such tortuous demise.

I bit my tongue to hold back these words I was thinking but couldn’t say to our young, male patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The attending physician had just exclaimed, “Foot drop is often one of the first signs of ALS. Do you notice here the distal muscle atrophy, including the intrinsic muscles of the hand, namely the dorsal interosseus muscles and

Interpreter of Cries

Melanie Tioleco-Cheng May 17, 2017 1 Comment

It happens daily. I enter a room and come face to face with someone who’s afraid of me. But we make friends, we may even laugh and share a high five or two. Then I leave. And from the room next door, I can hear the horrendous cry. The aftermath.

I’m a pediatrician, and the aftermath is when my capable medical assistant or nurse goes in after me to give a vaccine or

A Doctor Confesses: I Screwed Up

Marc D. Wager May 12, 2017 5 Comments

Marc D. Wager

When I was in medical school, more than thirty years ago, I felt I received pretty good training on how to communicate clearly and effectively with patients and families. I even remember the name of the fictitious character we had to practice telling about his wife’s demise: “Mr. Gottrocks, I’m afraid that your wife has taken a turn for the worse; I think you should come to the ICU right now.”

Tag: pediatrics