Page 195 – Pulse

Dreamy Poppy Pink

In nursing school, to learn about human anatomy, we dissected stray cats. The tiny blobs and structures inside them looked more like toys than organs; at times I had difficulty telling one part from another.

When our instructor got us invited to the medical school’s Anatomy Lab that studied real people, I was excited to finally see a complete human body. Maybe there would be straight pins with little flags for each section of the heart and brain. I expected the experience to be like our Cat Lab: clinical and unemotional.

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The Penetrable Body

3 Comments / Mistakes / Mary J. Mahoney

In 1983, the community hospital where I worked did not yet use the acronym AIDS. We used another one–FUO, for fever of unknown origin–which was emblazoned in marker on a red card on the doorjambs of certain private rooms. These rooms each had an anteroom with a sink and a hamper. This is where the donning and removal of protective suits took place. In this 4-foot-by-6-foot space between the hall and the patient’s room, the garbage cans bore biohazard symbols, and the red bags inside them were doubled and then encased in a third, clear garbage bag–to protect us, we were told.

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hospital parking

Leave a Comment / Haiku / Helen Buckingham

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Tom the Liver-Transplant Surgeon

5 Comments / Poems / Clyde Partin

Clyde Partin

The atypical place he wore his beeper
Warranted him a cameo appearance
In an essay I once wrote on pagers
However,
On this spring morning,
He was impeding my progress
As he sauntered across the intersection
In intimate communion with his cell phone
While I waited patiently to turn right
Taking my son to school
At five minutes to seven
I doubt he got to eat breakfast
With his kids.

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Tales Out of School

5 Comments / Stories / David Power

David Power

I am a professor of family medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School. During their third and fourth years, students must complete a four-week clerkship in family medicine. The clerkship includes a “significant-event reflection” project, in which students discuss patient encounters that they’ve found especially meaningful.

Over nearly a decade as a facilitator for these groups, I have heard many powerful and emotional stories. I’ve often felt deeply moved–and admiring of the students for their honesty, courage and humanity. Here are three of many whose stories I carry with me.

“Sure, I’ll go first!” said Rob. A fourth-year student, he was about to enter a radiology residency. Rob had a bright, open face and quick smile, and knowing that family medicine wasn’t his chosen specialty made me appreciate his enthusiasm all the more.

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Medical History, Reimagined

Leave a Comment / visuals / Sarah Bigham

Sarah Bigham

About the artist:

Sarah Bigham lives with her kind chemist wife, three independent cats, an unwieldy herb garden and several chronic pain conditions, including interstitial cystitis. Her work can be found at sgbigham.com.

About the artwork:

“As a ‘healthcare consumer’ with an artistic bent, I have found it challenging not only to explain my pain to others but to see my health history told in charts, lists, forms and electronic medical records. I have searched for ways to share my story of chronic pain, one shared by millions of people, in more expressive ways using color and narrative. I created this piece by dissolving supplements (those I take or have taken) as well as medications (those no longer needed) in water and using the resultant mixture to paint on watercolor paper.”

Visuals editor:

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Al Amira Abaya

Leave a Comment / Naked / D. Micah Milgraum

“There are some unusual spots on my feet that I want to have examined,” says the fifty-something woman with a friendly smile.

She is wearing an al amira, a two-piece veil consisting of a close-fitting cap and an accompanying tube-like scarf. The rest of her body is covered by her loose-fitting abaya, despite Philadelphia’s sweltering July heat. I have learned that these garments are traditionally worn by Muslim women as an expression of modesty when they’re in the presence of males not in their immediate family.

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Fistula Patient on Four

Leave a Comment / Naked / Hamish Rickett

When I joined the surgical team, she was already a fixture, having languished there on the fourth floor for over two months. Attractive, in her early thirties, she wore little but skimpy lingerie–garb that seemed at odds with her belly, criss-crossed as it was with surgical scars and small holes that weeped gastric juices and intestinal fluids. On the team’s daily rounds, the surgeons would don gloves, avoid eye contact with her, hem and haw their way through a cursory exam, then quickly move on.

Only a medical student, and feeling awkward in her presence, I would trail behind, tapping out a note before hurrying off to catch up with the team.

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How to Change a Diaper

4 Comments / Naked / Daniel Becker

Two daughters bring their severely demented mother into the clinic. The mother is no longer able to speak, but over the last few days she has groaned more during diaper changes. Her nursing home is worried she might have a bladder or vaginal infection. To check her urine, we undress her and catheterize her. To check her vagina, we take a swab using a speculum. We spin the urine and look for sediment under the microscope. Nothing. We look at the vaginal smear under the microscope, using both a saline prep and potassium hydroxide. Nothing. We treat her for bacterial vaginosis, because it’s a condition that’s easy to miss.

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Nothing Left Unexposed

Leave a Comment / Persevering / Mark Weiner

“Use the room over there,” she said, pointing towards the closed door to my right and handing me a clear, plastic cup with blue-twist top. “When you’re done, open the slot behind you, place the sample and close the slot door.”

It’s opening day at my cancer hospital. First peek into my innards is a urine sample, checking for protein. Too much excreted protein may signal kidney disease, a death knell to my upcoming cancer treatment. Which would in turn mean a death knell for me. The urine sample will be followed by a needlestick into one of my veins to fill an endless line of blood tubes. Some will be used to check routine blood labs. The rest will be mailed to some lab somewhere for monitoring my immune response during treatment.

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An Act of Love

Leave a Comment / Naked / Ronna L. Edelstein

For sixty-seven years, my dad was my best friend. We enjoyed walking and talking, taking long drives while licking ice cream cones, traveling, and just sitting in companionable silence.

We were best friends, but we always respected each other’s physical privacy. All of this changed when I became Dad’s caregiver.

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The Vulnerability and Freedom of Nakedness

Leave a Comment / Naked / Elizabeth Ross

There are many ways to be naked. There’s physical nakedness, and there’s also the nakedness of feeling vulnerable. When my body and hence my life have been out of control, it has felt like nakedness. When I have had no covering against the elements, whether physical or psychological, I have felt naked.

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