resident stories

What Little Separates Us

Adam Lalley March 3, 2023 8 Comments

Among the handful of patients who visited the emergency department one night in June with abdominal pain, rashes or fevers, I especially remember Michelle. She was a woman in her late twenties, eight weeks pregnant with her second child. I was a second-year resident, and she had come for help with something I’d already encountered over a dozen times in my training.

“I think I might be having a miscarriage,” she said. She stopped herself, then looked at me

Gift of Gratitude

Naveen Menon November 18, 2022 13 Comments

We all remember our patients who die, though the first patient death really stands out from the rest. This was certainly true for me.

I was just starting the second year of my internal-medicine residency. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen someone die, but it was the first time I’d seen someone who’d been alive and well, and talking to me that morning, be dead by the afternoon–a shocking dichotomy that haunts me to

Treating a Messiah

Syed M. Ahmed February 18, 2022 28 Comments

It was my very first day of psychiatry rotation in my family-medicine residency at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston.

This rotation took place at the old Ben Taub Hospital with its unmistakable odor–a combination of drugs, detergents, illness and death. Even if I were taken there blindfolded, one sniff would tell me that I was at Ben Taub.

At any rate, having survived my first seven months of residency, I was feeling a little

Dear Medical Student

Jessica C. Stuart October 29, 2021 12 Comments

Dear Medical Student,

I remember what it was like.

I remember what it was like the week before your clerkships begin, when you spend thirty minutes writing an email to the resident about how you’re excited to work with them, about how you’ve done cardiac stem-cell research and are interested in pursuing cardiology, and what can you do in advance, and oh, where should you meet the team on Monday morning? And they respond, “Great

The Other Side of the Mask

Ria Mulherkar August 31, 2021 11 Comments

I don’t know what it’s like on the other side of the mask.

Not the cloth mask, which I now wear every day, as habitually as my socks. I mean the plastic bipap mask, which provides the highest level of ventilation COVID patients can receive, short of intubation.

That mask.

OCD: What It Takes and What It Gives

Carolyn Rennels July 23, 2021 4 Comments

It started because of the news, or because the heat made me sweat, or because of neurotransmitters. Or my environment. Or nothing at all.

California was in a drought (as now), and in college I started to worry.

Going the Extra Mile

Zacheus W. Mbiri April 2, 2021 9 Comments

August 2018
Western Kenya

One morning, in the women’s ward of a semirural hospital where I was working as a family-medicine resident, my team encountered a rarity: a disabled forty-year-old lady with crutches. Her case seemed to scream for attention, and I made my way to her bed.

The Masked Asian Psychiatrist

Cynthia X. He July 14, 2020 8 Comments

About three months ago, I had a Definitely Racist Interaction at work. A patient—we’ll call him Allan—said to me: “I’d like a white doctor. Is there a white doctor available?”

Allan’s voice was even, but his attitude was provocative, as if he were testing me. I felt a flash of fury, but kept my face expressionless. Presumably the surgical mask I wore also helped to hide my feelings.

I Would Like to Call It Beauty

Andi Shahu June 30, 2020 10 Comments

Gearing up for my night shift in the COVID-19 intensive-care unit, I don my personal protective equipment (PPE)–a white plastic air-purifying respirator (PAPR) hood. The hood connects via a tube to a large battery pack that I strap onto my waist over my scrubs. I turn on the battery and shiver when the rush of cool air blows past my ears. I walk into a bright white antechamber where a safety officer inspects me.

“You’re

Saying the D-Word

Charlotte Grinberg June 12, 2020 10 Comments

It was late in the evening, and I was ready to start my night shift as an intern in the intensive-care unit. I sought out my fellow intern, who was finishing his shift, so that we could perform signout–the ritual of passing the patients’ information from one clinician to the next.

“Mrs. Klein in Bed 15 might go,” he whispered.

“Go? Go where?” I asked. “It’s 10 o’clock at night.”

“I mean she might go

Living-Room Code

Utsha Khatri May 1, 2020 5 Comments

It was a cold Friday morning, and my day started slow. I was a third-year emergency-medicine resident in West Philadelphia and was doing my EMS rotation.

I rode with the EMS lieutenant, who told me, “My job is to assist the medics with the bad stuff.” This, he explained, usually meant codes (cardiac arrests) and fires.

Then we got the first call and zipped through the city, lights and sirens blaring.

Detachedly, I wondered what

The Big Chill

Aarya Krishnan Rajalakshmi December 6, 2019 7 Comments

Tonight was yet another night on call in our emergency department–a chilly winter night on which I did a cruel deed: I discharged a homeless man back out into the cold.

This is a routine event in the life of psychiatry residents like myself. Normally, no one would bat an eye. It shouldn’t have mattered to me, either–except that the previous night I’d had to walk home from the hospital parking garage in decidedly adverse

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