fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Gift Pulse
Energize
Subscribe
Facebook Instagram Linkedin Bluesky

Supermarket Encounter

Leave a Comment / Race /

I was in a large supermarket in the late afternoon. At the busy cheese counter, I took a number and stood waiting in the large crowd. When my number was called, I pushed through the customers to the counter and gave my order. After I’d finished, I took a half-step backward and collided with someone.

As I turned around to apologize, I found myself facing a young woman who towered over me. I am white; she was African-American and wore the uniform of a meter maid. I said that I was sorry, that I hadn’t seen her.

Supermarket Encounter Read More »

Never Say Die

26 Comments / Stories /

Christine Todd

In November of my intern year, I had trouble finding the sun. It was dark when I woke up for work, and it was dark when work was done and I headed back home. I’d picked up the service on the cancer ward from an intern named Bob, and Bob had left me six handwritten pages on the subject of Jim Franklin.

And this was the deal: Jim Franklin, thirty-seven years old, had been living on the cancer ward for the last three months. He had a two-foot-high stack of records, and the pity and admiration of nearly every nurse, tech and doctor in the hospital. He’d been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma four years earlier, treated with chemotherapy and thought to be cured. A year ago his cancer had recurred, and he’d been failing therapy in what could only be called a spectacular manner ever since.

Never Say Die Read More »

Riding the Rails

12 Comments / Poems /

William Toms

Our train starts to move slowly down well-traveled tracks. Sunny out,
clouds in the distance. We pick up speed.

We offer obligatory greetings,
courtesy How you feelings?
We both know why she’s here
we defer that talk
as if deferring for a few minutes will make it easier.

The trackside turns to trash, human detritus, rusting hulks without utility.

I edge closer, negotiating perfunctory reviews–
her history, her physical, her labs, her imaging–
she owns them, they’re hers alone.
Then it’s time to enter the forbidden room of abnormals:
machine-made “shadows,” the blood’s “too highs.”
Her cloak of woven fear lies quietly on her shoulders.

Riding the Rails Read More »

Rijks.Fountain.Peter.Lewis

Rijks Fountain

Leave a Comment / visuals /

Peter Lewis

About the artist: 

Peter Lewis is a professor of family and community medicine and humanities at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, PA. His professional interests include doctor-patient communication, medical humanities, interdiscplinary collaboration and peer-mentoring. He and his wife Jennifer (who is a much more talented photographer) are grateful for times and travels with family and friends, neighbors and colleagues–in particular, their sons Kyle and Tyler.

About the artwork:

“As a physician I strive to be mindful and aware; to have the eyes to see the patient as a person, as both an individual and as one connected to a family or a community; and to have the ears to hear a person’s narrative, joys and sorrows, hopes and expectations. In the clinical environment I recognize that I see and may perceive but a fraction of who the patient truly is and where he or she finds meaning. While at a conference in Amsterdam

Rijks Fountain Read More »

Careful Fingers

Leave a Comment / Hands /
It was a Friday night in February. I was finishing up a poster for a conference on cancer genomics I had to attend the following Monday. As I worked, I thought about the possibility of making mistakes on the data analysis.

Gingerly, I went back to the raw data and repeated the process. Highlight this portion of the data. Make sure the data is valid. Copy and paste it into the statistical software. Click this button before pressing “Enter.” My eyes darted across the screen, watching every move my fingers made.

Careful Fingers Read More »

Selfie

12 Comments / Stories /

Melanie Di Stante

In 2000, my husband Brian was diagnosed with Stage IIIB Hodgkin lymphoma, which has since become a prominent part of our lives. My children and I belong to Gilda’s Club, a cancer support community, and recently we were asked to help record a promotional video to be featured at a fundraising gala for the local chapter and on the club’s website.

I’m not a “spotlight” kind of girl, and I don’t feel drawn to video cameras or speeches, but I’ve been going to two Gilda’s Club programs–a caregiver-support group, and a writing group–for nearly five years. Everyone is nurturing, supportive and so nice. My son Marco and daughter Gabriella also attend a group, where they do projects to help build resilience for kids impacted by cancer. It’s priceless, and it’s free.

If this is something I can do to give back, I thought, I’ll do it. My kids were on board as well.

Selfie Read More »

A Shared Language

Leave a Comment / Race /

I was waiting on a friend who had injured her arm. They entered later and huddled in the seats nearby, murmuring in hushed Korean and peering at the English signs.
Feverish and weak, the mother clutched her stomach while her husband stroked her arm. You could tell the son was anxious by the way he kept tugging at his father’s wrist to check his watch, the way he paced in little circles and rubbed his mother’s hand.

A Shared Language Read More »

© 2024 Pulse - Voices from the Heart of Medicine, Inc. All rights reserved.

Website Design & Development by New York Design Studio, LLC

Start typing and press enter to search

Scroll to Top

Subscribe to Pulse.

It's free.

Facebook Instagram Linkedin Bluesky