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Latest Voices
A Calling Quietly Found
In 2021, I began carrying what felt like a small but steady flame—a vision of public health that was more than a professional title. In the hills of Meghalaya, India, where beauty and burden exist side by side, I learned that my work was not only about data or reports. It was about healing that reaches beyond charts and protocols, into the fragile spaces where fear and denial quietly coexist.
Between hospital walls and distant villages, I encountered more than illness. I witnessed how tradition, financial hardship, and long journeys shaped decisions about care. I saw families sit with diagnoses
Forgotten
We were coming home from a band clinic, and I was riding in the car with the band director’s wife and son. The son was a couple of years older than me, and he was driving. We were all sitting in the front seat of one of those big, 1950s cars. We stopped for church, and afterwards his mother asked to trade places with me. I moved to the middle of the front seat, and she moved to the right. That’s the last thing I remember.
Car-Ma
Karma is the idea that the universe is ruled by cause-and-effect associations: that actions have consequences, good or bad. My mom instilled in me the idea that sometimes you need to be the voice, the conduit, for karma.
Years ago, I was indirectly hit by an impaired driver. This person hit the car behind me, and that driver in turn hit me. We could smell the alcohol on the impaired person’s breath. The police were called, but the police officer was reluctant to take the driver in question to the station for further testing, because there were no beer bottles
Safety Is Not Optional
When your life truly flashes before your eyes and you think, “This may be it—my last moment on planet Earth,” it is not a cinematic moment. There is only spinning. The sharp scent of gunpowder. A tree directly ahead. An airbag that hits you square in the face as you think, “Death by tree.”
Then everything stops. There are gurgling sounds and dusty smoke.
For a second, I wondered if I was waking up in heaven. Then came screeching sirens and flashing lights.
“Ma’am, are you all right?”
Read More »A Haunting Fear
It was December 1975, one month after I gave birth to my daughter. I had spent that month in a sleep-deprived state as I cared for her and my two-year-old son. I was also suffering from postpartum depression, a diagnosis not yet a part of the medical lexicon.
Most of all, I felt imprisoned. It was too cold to push the babies in the double stroller, and we did not live near enough to any indoor space where I might find an outlet for my locked-in feelings. That was why I convinced my reluctant husband to watch the children so
March More Voices: Motor-Vehicle Accidents
Dear readers,
I grew up in New York and have lived and worked in and around the city my entire life. Some news outlets and politicians like to paint big cities with a broad, scary brush, so that many people think that New York subways are a dangerous way to travel, akin to taking your life in your hands.
Statistics prove that there are far more dangerous ways to travel, and that’s been my lived experience, which is this:
I can name five relatives, all under twenty-five, who were killed in motor-vehicle accidents.
Read More »Alike in Disability
My first experience with healthcare and disability came when my youngest daughter was born. I knew something, besides her obvious club foot, was amiss. The pediatrician arrived. “Why doesn’t she flinch and fling her arms back?” I asked as I leaned her back to latch onto my breast. “She’s fine,” he said.
He looked in her mouth and noted her high, arched palate. “Your palate is high, too,” he assured me. “It is?” I thought.
“She’s jaundiced,” he said, noting her yellow eyes and skin. “Very common,” he added. “She has the same color eyes and skin as you.”
“Doesn’t
Universal Longing
My work as a physician often centers around helping mitigate trauma held by my patients. Recently I realized that my work also revolves around helping my patients manage their longing.
People long so deeply, and for so much. They go through countless medical procedures for a chance to become parents. They trial numerous medications and lifestyle changes to lose weight, feel less pain, or sleep through the night. They yearn for relief from the panic and depression that prevents them from leaving the house, working, and making friends. They pray that their cancer will stay in remission amid traumatic memories
Hand Hygiene
I work in three public hospitals. Each has its own mandatory training process. I completed the hand hygiene modules at two of them and submitted those certifications to the third. I was told that the training is site-specific, that I’d need to also do the training at the third hospital.
At first, I felt frustrated. How can hand hygiene be site specific? Is my flu vaccination site specific?
Then I realized my feelings ran deeper than frustration. They spoke of longing.
I came to this work to help people.
My hope is to be supported by a system that enables
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