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Shujinwa Byoki Des
Lucy Moore
I don’t speak Japanese, but I can say “Shujinwa byoki des” (my husband is sick).
After spending a month in Bali studying art, sweating profusely and slapping mosquitoes, we were heading home to New Mexico, with a stop in Hiroshima on the way. Our first morning there, my husband, Roberto, woke with a fever of 103 and a full body rash.
The hotel had a thermometer, but no doctor. As Roberto’s fever neared 104, we hailed a cab for Hiroshima City Hospital. (That was when I pieced together shujinwa byoki des from my pocket dictionary.)
In the large, orderly waiting room, we were the only Caucasians. Roberto was a sight–lobster-red and wild-eyed. Staff and patients politely averted their eyes.
A nurse led us to the
Past Medical History
Donald Stewart
Tryst With The Microscope
Reeta Mani
“So what kind of doctor are you?” asks my new neighbor, peering curiously at the MD degree on my visiting card.
“I’m a microbiologist,” I tell her. “I work in the lab and help clinicians to diagnose infectious diseases.”
Her questioning look fades. “So you don’t see patients?”
“No,” I answer. “I don’t have to interact closely with patients, except in a few cases.”
She reflects for a moment, then says, “It’s good in a way. You can help them, but you don’t have to witness their pain and suffering up close.”
I agree. In fact, that was one of the biggest reasons why I decided to specialize in microbiology. (In India, after graduating from medical school you can go straight into a
The Calling
Lawrence Dyche
I am a non-physician who teaches physicians. A clinical social worker by training, I help doctors learn to be more compassionate and skilled in their human interactions. I sit in with residents as they see their patients. I help them to become better listeners, I remind them that as they touch the body they also touch the soul, I emphasize the enormity of witnessing. And after two decades of doing this work with innumerable students, I still regard the medical profession with awe–not simply the doctors but the calling, and the extraordinary way I’ve seen some people answer it.
Back in the Eighties, when I was beginning this work, I shadowed a resident for an entire day on the wards of a city
Things That Matter
Paul Gross
For me, the best part of being a doctor, and the biggest privilege, is getting to talk with people about things that matter.
“You look sad today,” I say to a patient I’m seeing for the first time–a thirty-eight-year-old woman with a headache. In response, her lower lip starts to tremble, and she wipes an eye.
As I reach for the box of tissues and hand it to her, I know that whatever has caused her tears will be more important than her presenting symptom.
A forty-five-year-old man comes in wanting help sustaining erections. When I ask for a few details, it turns out he’s having sex every single day of the week, and he’s finding it a challenge to maintain an erection
Food
Joanne Wilkinson
I have a stress test nearly every year. I do this because my mother dropped dead of a heart attack when she was thirty-six, and now I am thirty-five.
They stick EKG leads on me, and for weeks I have blotchy red circles on my skin where it’s reacted to the adhesive. I run on the treadmill. Sometimes the cardiologist scans my heart and arteries with ultrasound; other times, he injects me with a radioactive marker. Sometimes he looks at me as though I’m wasting his time. Sometimes he frowns and looks concerned when he hears about my family history.
I always pass the test.
Why did my mother have a heart attack? I don’t have satisfying answers for this. Was her
Lost in the Numbers
Donald Stewart
A nurse entered the operating room; her eyes–the only part of her face visible above her surgical mask–held a look of mild distress. She stood quietly until the surgeon noticed her.
“What is it?” he said.
“It’s your patient in 208, Doctor. His pressure is 82.”
“Systolic?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
The nurse was referring to Mr. Johnson. The previous week, we’d removed a small tumor from his lung without difficulty–and, until now, without complications. He’d been transferred out of Intensive Care to the main surgical floor, and that very morning we had removed the last drainage tubes from his chest. He was scheduled to go home the next day.
Now his blood pressure was plummeting.
“Doctor Stewart, break scrub and go see what’s going
Tea and Daisies
Amy Cooper Rodriguez
It’s been almost ten years since Esther died, and I still think of her almost every day. I was her physical therapist at a rehabilitation hospital. My patients had many different diagnoses–head injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis, hip or knee replacements. I was in my early twenties. I thought that if I tried hard enough, I could help everyone. And often, I could.
“What are you going to do to me?” Esther asked, looking up from her hospital chair.
I laughed and pulled up a chair. “I’m Amy, your physical therapist. I’m not going to do anything to you. I’m here to help you get back to doing things you miss.”
Esther smoothed her long skirt over
Girl Talk
Warren Holleman
“I got pregnant. Quit sports, quit school. Quit all my dreams.”
Brenda looks fit and handsome, despite the scar running down the middle of her face. At six feet tall, she commands respect, even though her sweet, high-pitched voice belies her imposing physique.
We are sitting in a circle: Brenda, six other women and me. Most are in their thirties and forties, and in their fourth or fifth month of sobriety. They look professional in the suits they’ve assembled from the donations closet of our inner-city recovery center.
No one is surprised when Brenda says that, twenty years ago, she trained for the U.S. Olympic volleyball team.
“Did you ever compete again?” someone asks.
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
Brenda shakes her head. The group