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moon - sanders

Moon

1 Comment / visuals /

Justin Sanders

About the artist: 

Justin Sanders trained as a family doctor and is now pursuing a career in palliative care. He and his wife live in Boston, preparing to welcome their first child into the world. Having studied art history and worked in the fine arts, he has a deep faith in their healing power. He is a Pulse author and serves as its visuals editor. When not frantically cleaning house in preparation for a baby, he loves to mess up recipes from a growing cookbook collection and to read The New Yorker.

About the artwork:

“My wife’s pregancy has been an amazing time for us. It’s remarkable that such a common event can be one that feels so profoundly unique. Becoming pregnant took unexpected effort and time, and so excitement has been tempered throughout by worry that things will turn out okay. I took this photo at thirty-seven weeks, full term, and it reminded me of a waxing moon. As a family doctor with experience in obstetrics, one » Continue Reading.

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Secret Admirer

28 Comments / Stories /

Kristen Nace

You will never see my face or know my name. You probably won’t give much thought to what happens to your blood after your doctor says, “I think we need to run some tests,” and the phlebotomist draws it into the tubes with their colored tops. I know I never did, until I became a medical laboratory technologist.

Over the course of a normal day at the hospital lab, my coworkers and I process hundreds of patient specimens–everything from blood to bone, from sputum to spinal fluid. Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, the specimens come to us from the hospital’s ER and ICU, from doctor’s offices and nursing homes, from the inpatients on the floors above us and from outpatients who walk in through the hospital’s doors.

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She sat on the curb

5 Comments / Poems /

Tammy Hansen Snell

She sat on the curb in her hospital gown
pretending not to see me coming.
The tube from her hand to the IV pole in the street
lifted the flimsy sleeve of her robe.
Cars went by, and we both watched them
as if we cared what color they were.
The IV pole in the street didn’t matter
unless two cars went by at the same time.
“You can go away and leave me alone,” she said,
knowing my job wouldn’t let me do that.

She sat on the curb Read More »

Stained Marrow - OBranski

Stained Marrow

3 Comments / visuals /

Erin O’Branski

About the artist: 

Erin O’Branski is a physician assistant practicing in hematology-oncology at the Duke Cancer Institute. She is also a continuing-education student at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke. She is currently documenting art and beauty in everyday life in the hospital, a project which began as a way to process the pain and sadness associated with life-threatening diseases. Her recent short documentary Cancer Warriors can be seen at http://www.documentingmedicine.com/cancer-warriors/

About the artwork:

“After performing a bone-marrow biopsy, I accompanied the lab technician to the lab and photographed the process of staining the cover slips that are placed on specimen slides. I really liked the colors, especially the cover slip with water on it; it looks like a jewel.”

Visuals editor:

Justin Sanders

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The Couple Next Door

12 Comments / Stories /

Kelly McCutcheon Adams

In 2005, my husband and I bought a small farmhouse in northern New England next door to Tom and Sally.

They were in their early seventies, married nearly fifty years, with a large family. Tom’s grandfather had built a farmhouse in 1900 on the family’s small pig farm. In the 1970s, Tom and Sally had parceled off the land and built a modern house for themselves, a stone’s throw from the old farmhouse that eventually became ours.

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All in a Night’s Work

5 Comments / Stories /

Isaac Song

I was a college freshman, just starting out as a rookie EMT with the local rescue squad. In the squad building, located near a strip mall in our suburban New Jersey town, my fellow volunteers and I joined the staff supervisors to spend days or nights on call.

On a rescue squad, I quickly learned, patience is key. If you visited the building, you’d see seasoned EMTs lounging around as if they had nothing better to do. They had developed a subdued alertness that let them relax while also being ready to leap into action. Unfortunately, I had yet to cultivate this quality; I sat in silence, jittering apprehensively.

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Peacock

Empty, Scarred, Full of Love

2 Comments / visuals /

 

Karen Peacock

About the artist: 

Karen Peacock is a board-certified art therapist in private practice in Memphis, TN. “Using art to express my experiences provides a unique perspective, often bringing equilibrium to emotions that may be hard to express verbally.”

About the artwork:

“After giving birth to my son, I reached for art materials to express the complexity of emotions I was experiencing. This image, created with crayons and ink pen, depicts the contrasting feelings of physical emptiness and emotional fullness, as well as feelings of being physically scarred and emotionally loved.”

Visuals editor:

Justin Sanders

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Solitary Confinement

14 Comments / Stories /

Stewart Decker

 I’ve made a huge mistake, I thought.

The fever had come back. The fever had come back, and I was stuck on a bus. The first of five buses, actually….

I am a fourth-year medical student at the University of Minnesota, but right now I’m a long way from home. I am spending a year in South America, studying international public-health issues by working in emergency rooms, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social projects and surgical suites.

When this story began, I’d been living in a small, remote town called Central Yuu, in the Ecuadorian jungle, helping the villagers to build a potable-water spring-protection system. It was on a rainy day there that I collected a connect-the-dots pattern of insect bites on my ankles.

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