- Home
- /
- Latest Voices
- /
- Page 132
Latest Voices
The Transition
Brie Chun
May 7, 2016
No Comments
As a medical student, I would show up to clinic the first day of my rotation and introduce myself to the receptionist. Standing there in the waiting room, conspicuous in my short, white coat, and referring to myself as “the new medical student,” I’d feel the patients’ gaze. The receptionist would wave me to the clinic, and I would sigh with relief.
This Time, I’m Happy to Wait
Violet Kieu
May 6, 2016
No Comments
It is the same old waiting room, but something is different. It is my first visit to my obstetrician after having my baby.
Pity Party
Debi Santini
May 5, 2016
2 Comments
Following eye surgery, I was “sentenced” to two weeks of lying face down. But five days in I know without a doubt that something has gone horribly wrong.
Precipitation: 50%
Rita Ciresi
May 5, 2016
No Comments
Sitting in the oncologist’s waiting room is like watching the weather report.
Deciphering the ER Triage Formula
Scott Bolhack
May 5, 2016
No Comments
I want to know what the formula is. I’m speaking, of course, of the formula that gets one person back into the emergency room to be seen, while another waits and waits with the sick, cranky, disheveled masses.
Desperate for Change
Pamela Freundl Kirst
May 4, 2016
2 Comments
It is a mild Sunday afternoon in October, and I am standing in front of a closed reception window, desperate for change. It is the early 1990s, and we don’t yet have cell phones. I have already exhausted my supply of coins, making calls on the public phone hanging on the wall in the ER waiting room.
Hope
Greg Manship
May 3, 2016
3 Comments
Who knows how many voices created the cacophony that filled the waiting room that night? Words, wails and whispers gave sound to the gamut of human experiences and emotions. But as I listened, I heard one clear, unwavering note that floated above the clamor.
Green, White and Sterile
Bill Toms
May 3, 2016
No Comments
The young, black-haired waiting-room receptionist, in a voice that is pleasant and professional but too loud, instructs those of us who are waiting–grey-haired and balding, strangely like me–where we should go for the next phase of our lives. So many are told to go to the critical-care waiting area that I worry that young black-hair knows no other destination. I have an urge to educate her about the “everything’s fine, no need to worry” waiting area and to speak a little more softly, but I think twice about it since, like all the people working here, she seems so powerful,
Read More »
“Hug Lady, Pretty Dress, Crying?”
Shirley Phillips
May 2, 2016
3 Comments
I am sitting in the all-too-familiar waiting room of my local emergency department on a Saturday night in July. I am here with my daughter, Ashley, who is nineteen but could pass for a typical twelve-year-old—until she starts to talk. Ashley has a rare genetic disorder. On the good days I laugh and say that she will make a great ventriloquist because she talks without ever moving her lips. This is not a good day. She has a fever, a wet cough, and she snuggles up against me.
Subscribe
Get the latest issue of Pulse delivered to your inbox, free.
