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Saving My Appendix
Andrew T. Gray
The doctor was adamant. “This is America, not Sweden,” he told me. “We operate.”
How did this happen to me? I wondered, looking at him across the ER exam room. How could I, a healthcare provider, not have insurance?
I had woken up that morning with a mildly upset stomach. Nonetheless, I’d gone to my job (begun only six weeks earlier) as a physician assistant at a Beverly Hills HIV clinic. I’d seen patients until lunchtime, then attended a research meeting. The subject was a study of irritable bowel syndrome.
“I need to be in this study,” I joked to a coworker. “My IBS is acting up.”
I don’t have IBS, but I was indeed having crampy stomach pain. I continued to see patients
A Second Chance
Mitch Kaminski
My patient Maria sits before me, looking vaguely distressed.
She’s returned for a follow-up visit, six weeks after our first. The morning is half over, and I’m clipping along, staying on time, using the new electronic medical record system (EMR) without a glitch and with a sense of satisfaction. Three months back, when I joined this small-town practice as part of my new position as a health-system medical director, I found the EMR challenging, so I’m pleased that I’ve finally mastered it.
Maria’s face looks familiar–pretty, but with a worried look that matches her hastily applied makeup.
In Sickness and in Health
Larry Zaroff
Four months after having a knee replacement, I stumbled into the bathroom at three AM, not fully awake, hoping to urinate.
Losing my balance, I fell. The result was a compound fracture of my left leg–the one with the prosthetic knee.
Gazing at my shiny white kneecap, I lost all logic, all control. I simply cried.
At eighty, I was unprepared for this unexpected anatomy lesson: my twenty-nine years as a surgeon had simply not prepared me for viewing the inside of my own knee.
It felt like my life was over.
Fortunately my wife, Carolyn, a painter, four years younger than I, and without any orthopedic experience, took one look, said little, but acted.
She wrapped my naked bones in a clean
Bitter Medicine
Karen Libertoff Harrington
As a medical educator in a hospital setting, I often tell first-year medical students about disparities in health care and about the vastly different quality of care that hospitals deliver, depending on their resources.
I tell my students how important it is to advocate for patients, to learn to navigate the healthcare system and to work respectfully with health professionals in order to get optimal care for your patients.
When my own son was hospitalized, I had an opportunity to put my teachings into practice, and found them wanting.
It was a Thursday evening in early spring, the first hint of green emerging on the lawn of my suburban Connecticut home.
My son David
A TAB No More
Sandra Shea
I thought of Peter when I lost my TAB status.
I lost it on vacation. These things happen. Suddenly, one Friday night in Florida, I was no longer a TAB. Shouldn’t have been too surprised, I guess.
But I didn’t expect it would involve a chicken.
I should explain.
I’m a medical educator: I have a PhD in experimental psychology/neuroscience, and I teach first-year medical students. In our curriculum, the students work through patient cases that are grouped by organ system. At the end of each case, we have a wrap-up in which we highlight the case’s diagnostic features and answer any student questions. Most of these discussions are faculty-led, but occasionally they’re run by
Vanishing Act
Sudeep Dhoj Thapa
It was a summer night during my first year of medical school. Small bugs danced about the school buildings’ lights and filled the air with their penetrating hum.
In the television room, located across a small grassy lawn from the dormitories, I sat watching old movies with my classmate and friend Rajesh.
Rajesh was tall and chunky. He wore his thick, jet-black hair combed back, which made his broad face and smile appear even more so. I’d known him since our first days at medical school.
“Everyone in my hometown knows me,” Rajesh had told me. “I’m the first one in my area to go to medical school.” Clearly he enjoyed being the pride
Seeing Patients: The Sketchiest Details
Alan Blum
Editor’s Note: This week Pulse is once again pleased to present sketches by Alan Blum, a family physician who’s been capturing his patients on paper, with grace and affection, for decades. These quick portraits are taken from a collection entitled Seeing Patients: The Sketchiest Details.
You say you think you got a medicine
to stop my seizures?
I don’t know why,
it’s the only exercise I get.
You better just go
Joe the Handyman
Angela Yang
“Forty-two-year old male, chronic pain syndrome,” the chart reads.
I’m a third-year medical student doing an elective at a physical medicine and rehabilitation clinic, and this is my first time seeing Joe.
Sitting expectantly in the exam-room chair, he’s a gaunt man with a long face and dark tattoos down his arms. Wire-rimmed glasses, stringy ponytail, faded jeans and leather jacket complete the look.
“Nice to meet you,” I say. “I’m Angela, a medical student. I’m doing a couple of weeks here with Dr. Ross, the chief physician.”
“Thank you, doc. I’m Joe.” He smiles, dark eyes twinkling, and I glimpse yellow-stained teeth.
Probably from smoking, I think.
Joe starts talking, jiggling his leg nervously.
The Pronouncement
Carl V. Tyler
I knew from last night’s house call that my patient Bessie’s time was near. All day long I’d felt the familiar churning inside, the sickly sweet combination of anticipated dread and anticipated relief. So when the phone rang while I was exercising at home, I wasn’t surprised. I quickly dropped the barbell weights to answer the call before it went to voice mail.
It was Bessie’s daughter, Susan.