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Latest Voices
Memories of Columbine
Every school shooting takes me back to April 1999.
I was a medical student in Denver, Colorado, when the Columbine High School shooting occurred very nearby. The recurrent media coverage of mass shootings continually reignites the horror and shock of that day; several of my classmates had graduated from Columbine, others cared for the wounded.
With every school shooting since, I wonder, how is it we can’t move forward? My mind replays the scenes from Columbine—a student dangling from a window, the terror of those running from the scene, the memorial of white crosses on a hill.
Sleeping Now
“I can’t sleep,” I repeatedly told my PCP. I told him I would lie in bed at night, my mind racing from one topic to another: work, errands, kids, pets, yardwork. I would turn the light back on and play solitaire until my eyes were blurry, then give sleeping another try. Getting up at 4:00 a.m. was usual for me, which meant getting to sleep between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. was essential.
A Routine Clinic Session
I open the door, belt out a “hello,” and peer at the patient seated in the exam room I’ve just entered. My gaze is drawn to a homemade button pinned to their jacket and then to their T-shirt. Both depict a photo of their loved one who was a victim of gun violence. The victim’s dates of birth and death are imprinted below the photo. A quick mental subtraction reveals a life ended far too soon.
Pulling Away
Left alone, feeling a tenuous thread stretching taut skin over adipose tissue and tender flesh—pink, vulnerable womb empty; umbilicus severed; blood dried and brown. Perspiration beads on my brow, my breasts are heavy with milk. The letdown eases the waning contractions, starts to erase my recent memory of pain.
Guns Beget Guns
Joanna has always been more dramatic than my other patients, but this time she seemed so much more distressed and fidgety than before. I had to ask, “How are things at home?” That was her cue to ask me to bring in my medical assistant, who has now become her friend, to help with translation. She did not want me to misinterpret anything she told me, in her broken English. And so we switched to Spanish.
She Loved Her Baby
I was a second-year ob-gyn resident, back in the mid-1980s, when I met her in the clinic. She stood out because she could speak English—Queen’s English, to boot. She was friendly and happy. She anticipated her delivery with joy. I saw her several times in the clinic and again in the labor room, when we celebrated her son’s birth.
But here’s what she didn’t tell me: She had been a sex worker.
The Struggle of Not Being Able to Do More
It was just another day at the outpatient plastic surgery clinic where I am training as a medical student. A middle-aged man walked in with multiple scars on the back part of both hands. At first glance, they looked like bite marks. On closer inspection, I saw exposed bone. What was I seeing? This didn’t make sense.
Beyond the Number
24,576.
The number alone is staggering. Twenty-four thousand five hundred and seventy-six deaths due to homicide in the United States in 2020, per the CDC estimate. This number, however, leaves out much of the toll of violence, a reality that became clear to me after an experience in clinic one afternoon.
Enough
When I entered elementary school in the 1950s, I practiced hiding under my wooden desk in case a Soviet bomb was dropped on my school. By the time I took early retirement as a teacher in 2003, I was leaving a middle school with a locked-door policy; the principal told us if we ever heard over the loudspeaker that “Mr. Lock” had entered the building, we should immediately lock our classroom doors and gather our students on the floor, away from the windows.
