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Latest Voices
Bare Hands and an Open Heart
No Retakes
I was midway through my internal medicine internship when elderly Mrs. Armstrong was transferred to our service for treatment of a pulmonary embolus (aka PE–a blood clot in the lungs) after a knee fracture repair. I remember thinking, disparagingly, “Surgeons should be able to treat a PE!”
The following morning, our team rounded on our patients and hurriedly wrote orders and notes because Susan, my senior resident, and I would be in clinic all afternoon. As we worked, another resident, Greg, stopped by and invited us to a party that evening. “I hope I can come,” I said. “If I
Paprika
Tired from the long drive, I thought back on my years of marriage. Back pain was the first problem, I think. Then GERD, then migraines, dizziness, TMJ, panic attacks, fibromyalgia. They were all tough, serious problems. But all together?
Rough Start
Gingerly, I slide my hands under his sausage-like arms, my fingers cradling the doughy curves of his tiny neck, caressing the orange-yellow cornsilk on his occiput. Slowly, I lift him from the sterile white mattress he’s called home for the month since his exit from the womb, since his insurmountable hurdles
Emergency Intubation
During my first year of anesthesia training I was called to open an emergency airway for a patient struggling to breathe in the Medical ICU. When I arrived amid a flurry of activity and billowing yellow isolation gowns, the monitor was crying DING DING DING to alert us that the patient’s oxygen saturation was hovering in the mid-80s–dangerously low. The patient’s small face was obscured by the oxygen mask, his frail body covered by a hospital gown.
The patient was too confused to follow any instructions, and the loud noises of the ICU machines didn’t make things any easier. I tried to
It Doesn’t Work That Way
My second month of residency. My first solo thoracentesis–a procedure to remove fluid around the lung. The supervising physician I’d just met watches over my shoulder as I carefully count and percuss the rib, fasten the drape in place, gown, glove, and cleaned off the skin.
Infiltrate with lidocaine…good. Thread the catheter into the trochar…good. Attach the stopcock…good. Make sure it’s open in the right direction. Puncture the skin, pull back on the syringe, fill the syringe with fluid. A sigh of relief–it’s in the right place. Turn the stopcock, remove the syringe…. The supervising physician makes an inarticulate noise.
Mortuus (Dead)
It was a grim night. A man had stumbled, drunk, into the street and been hit by a car. The car drove off, but bystanders called 911. The man was strapped to a bright yellow gurney and brought to the emergency department in an immaculately clean ambulance. He himself, however, was disheveled, soiled and violently combative. He fought. He yelled. He spat. He smelled. He was disgusting.
Everyone deserves good care, thought I. My evaluation found him to be merely drunk. I considered imaging studies, but they would have required general anesthesia, which didn’t seem advisable given the man’s condition. Instead, I
A Plea for Forgiveness
Despair tastes sour and rotten on my quivering lips. Dishonor feels heavy and tight on my heaving chest. Dejection means hearing only my own sobs through my covered ears. Disgrace sees only my mistakes, and with blurry, red eyes. Depression smells like sweat and fear, even through a clogged nose.
It’s Only One IV
I was lying in the preop area, waiting to be taken in for abdominal surgery, when a nurse came along with a bag of liquid and hung it from my IV pole.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s an antibiotic,” she replied.
“I’m not scheduled to get an antibiotic,” I said.
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