Deep Diver
I knock on the partly open door and peek around the curtain. A grainy yellow light above the hospital bed falls on a frail, trembling woman as she struggles to comb her wet grey hair.
“Margaret?” I say quietly.
She does not hear me over the hiss of the supplemental oxygen. I watch her for a moment longer.
A Golden Gift
I spent my early years as a talker—one who told stories to her dolls and instructed them how to behave in imaginary social situations. Although I was a good student, teachers often labeled me as loquacious, as the student who raised her hand but spoke before being called on. Only when my parents and paternal grandmother told me stories did I stop speaking and start listening. The more they shared, the more I learned the value of not just hearing the words of others but of listening to the meaning behind those words.
February More Voices: Listening
Dear Pulse readers,
If someone were to ask me what’s the most important and rewarding part of being a doctor, I would probably answer: Listening.
Listening?
That answer might seem odd: You don’t need to go to medical school to learn how to listen.
February More Voices: Listening Read More »
Layers
“He pulled his Dobhoff again.”
The pager’s words echo on my retina as I indulge in a prolonged, beleaguered sigh. These are the five-minutes-til-sign-out pages that are going to push me to start Amlodipine (a blood pressure medicine) before I’m thirty.
He’s ninety-six years old. He doesn’t remember his name, where he is or what year it is. He has no proxy or next of kin. He’s not talking.
Where My Story Ends and Yours Begins
It was a Thursday morning, my first day on the medical oncology service. I hurriedly gathered my white coat and badge, the block letters “3rd Year Medical Student” unmistakable in fresh ink. Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to look up at the cancer center.
This is going to be difficult, I thought.
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Everyone Has a Story
As I’ve learned in my three years as a medical student, medicine teaches us to place one another in cardboard boxes with worn-out, silver duct-tape labels: “Difficult” patients, tolerable colleagues, children working as family translators, nurses balancing too many beds, the old man who just needs someone to talk to. Like everyone else, I’ve gotten comfortable interacting within the boundaries of these boxes. It’s easier. It’s safer.
And then came Shirley.
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My Family’s Chronic Illness
Mother’s Day, 2020. My daughter Skyler was sitting on the tall stool at the kitchen counter, her long hair in a messy bun that she’d pulled apart as she was thinking. For months, she’d been searching for financial support to attend university in the fall. It was the deadline for a scholarship offered by the drug company Vertex to family members of patients who have cystic fibrosis (CF).
Patients like me.
My Family’s Chronic Illness Read More »
A Christmas Gift
Two years. Fully masked with my eye shield every single day with no issues. COVID patients, non-COVID patients. Bring them on! I wore my PPEs, practiced social distancing, wore masks, avoided crowds, shopped during off hours. The whole nine yards and never caught COVID.
Black and White
Joe, a young Black man, has fire in his eyes as he storms down the apartment building’s front steps and into the night. It’s around 10:00 pm, and you can tell he means business as he heads across the parking lot toward a group of rough-looking white guys who are drinking beer and playing loud music.
I’m on the front porch talking with the minister as we wait for the funeral home to arrive to remove Joe’s mother’s body. Sensing something bad is about to happen, I take off after him.