The eradication of non-native Fallopia japonica,
for all intents and purposes, must be considered a
practical impossibility. The aggressive nature of the
plant, combined with the similarly harmful side effects
of the removal options, renders it one of the most
devastating blights facing modern homeowners today.
Cultivation Also Starts With C Read More »
Having a purpose in life is as critical to one’s well-being as food and shelter. I’ve learned, over my 25 years of doctoring, that a sense of purpose both helps us develop our identity—our sense of self—and connects us to something greater than ourselves.
Finding New Purpose Read More »
Dear Pulse readers,
I remember when my late mentor Deb Taylor (now a guardian angel) introduced me to Pulse during my family medicine residency. She led a reflective exercise on “Something that surprised you.” I wrote about a fetal demise case where, for the first time, I saw an attending physician showing vulnerability.
Soon after that, Deb called me into her office, showed me the Pulse website and explained that Pulse was an online magazine where people shared their personal stories about health care. She encouraged me to develop my reflective piece and submit it for possible publication.
I was hesitant at first.
A Few Words from Pulse’s New New Voices Editor Read More »
I knew the private room at the busy teaching hospital was a rare luxury.
I had spent the entire day having invasive and uncomfortable tests; I was in the hospital because my left kidney had been partially destroyed by an interventional radiologist who had failed to distinguish between a renal cyst and a renal diverticulum. Thus my left kidney had been ablated with alcohol—twice. I was in pain, infected, and bleeding internally.
Solitude Interrupted, Thankfully Read More »
It was a spring afternoon in Kottayam, Kerala, India, and I was a seventeen-year-old student, doing my final two years of high school at a local college, as could be done in India. I was the student-body president, with just two months to go until graduation.
And in another five minutes, I was going to end my life.
“From dust we came, and to dust we shall return,” she whispered to me. Her face brightened up her compact 80-square-foot room. I held her hand, decorated with jewels from all around the world. She had just been transferred here from another memory care facility, and I’d decided to sit down with her every Sunday. Stacked in her lap were a Bible, a devotional book, and a journal. “What do you write in there?” I asked, pointing to the beaded journal.
I feel like a salmon swimming upstream, constantly fighting the current: the current of a system designed to dehumanize students, residents, and patients—a system in which “health” and “care” are often afterthoughts, while profits and media image take precedence.
Against the Current Read More »
“Are you going to leave me?” my ninety-year-old patient asks me during our home visit. I was summoned because she’s been pressing the call button on her wrist every hour. An overworked nurse in her assisted living sent an exasperated fax, mentioning that all vital signs are stable, no physical symptoms, but the patient complains of “being uncomfortable.” Anxiety is a diagnosis of exclusion I’ve come to exclude.
Are You Going to Leave Me? Read More »
One spring day last year, I sat in the office of the man who was to be my husband’s heart surgeon, waiting to have one of the most important conversations of my life. My husband, Craig, sat next to me with his guide dog, Chase, at his feet.
The doctor—tall, dressed in surgical scrubs—came in, introduced himself and sat down. His eyes looked kind; his demeanor was serious.
The Man Who Holds Hearts Read More »
© 2024 Pulse - Voices from the Heart of Medicine, Inc. All rights reserved.
