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A Passage in India
Justin Sanders
“It’s cooler this morning,” I said to Seema, as we left the hospital grounds en route to our home visits.
It was a bright and bustling morning in Trivandrum, the capital of India’s southwesternmost state, Kerala. A third-year resident in family medicine, I had come here to work with the staff of an Indian nonprofit devoted to advancing palliative care services across India. Seema was a young, newly qualified junior doctor who had only recently joined the organization. We were traveling with five others–our driver, two nurses and two nursing trainees–into the mountains east of Trivandrum for the day.
“We don’t really speak about the weather like you do,” Seema gently chided. “In the West you spend lots of time talking about the
Hospital Librarian
Pam Kress-Dunn
Some people seem surprised to find a library in a hospital. But it’s here, and so am I. Having been a librarian in lots of different libraries–public, academic, archival–I jumped at this job when it opened up. Little did I know what I was getting into.
Like many medical librarians, I work solo. I do have a volunteer who, despite being decades older than me, works tirelessly during the two days a week she’s here. But I’m the one who does the lit searches, tracks down the articles in medical journals and finds the piece of information the doctor requires before the surgery that’s scheduled for noon.
Little Lady
Samyukta Mullangi
Growing up, I was the one thought to be the most squeamish about medicine–the needles, the knives, the musty smell of alcohol swabs and the rusty stench of blood. Whenever my mother, an ob/gyn, talked on the phone with her patients about menstruation, cramps and bloating, I’d plug my ears and wish for death by embarrassment. Once, standing in line for a routine TB test, I had a friend pull up a chair for me “in case you faint.”Â
So my entire family thought it hilarious when I decided to go to medical school.Â
“You know that residents practice stitches on each other, don’t you?” my cousin teased.Â
“Consider real estate instead,” my grandmother advised.
In deference to her, I actually did go
Just This Once
Majid Khan
It’s a rainy Thursday evening in our small inner-city practice. Today is the receptionist’s birthday, and I’ve been cordially invited to attend a small party prepared by her coworkers.
As I descend the green carpeted steps to the lounge, my aching muscles remind me about the torture session (otherwise known as “boxercise”) that I attended last night in my ongoing effort to get fit and control my weight. I still feel slightly resentful of Robert, the trainer; when he caught me slacking off during sit-ups, he embarrassed me in front of the class by making me repeat them.
Good job I didn’t tell him about those two
Genuine Touch
Jonathan Gotfried
I was a medical student doing my fourth-year rotation on the oncology floor. The floor offered many new sights, and from the first, I was struck by the two mammoth massage chairs sitting in a corner at the end of the longest corridor.Â
Their exaggerated curves were plastered with jet-black faux leather adorned with stitching details. Long, smooth armrests of oak jutted out on either side. The remote control was a virtual supercomputer offering thousands of programs designed to enhance one’s massaging pleasure–kneading, fast, pressure, heat, full-body massage. On either side of the plush headrest, strategically placed speakers would play soft classical music, drowning out the low hum of
Medicine Land Celebrates a Birthday
Paul Gross
The first real patient of my medical career was a 60-year-old man in the surgical intensive care unit. I met him on the first day of the third year of medical school, when students join teams of doctors doing inpatient medicine.
The surgical team met at 7:00 am–a ludicrously early hour, I thought. There were nearly ten of us–four students, a couple of interns and senior residents and a chief resident.
As the team gathered around the patient’s bed, we students hung back, looking at the form before us. A pale, fleshy foot poked out from under his hospital gown. The room smelled funny.
The patient was comatose. Had he been awake and alert, he might not have been heartened by our team’s
One Hundred Wiser
Anne K. Merritt
I gather my belongings: stained white coat, stethoscope, pen light, black ballpoint. I stuff the last two granola bars into my canvas bag. I glance at the clock on the microwave, which is three minutes fast.Â
Twenty-two minutes until my shift begins. One minute before I will lock the door to my apartment.Â
Precision is critical: ER shifts change fast and blend together, from late nights to early mornings to mid-afternoons. Suns set and rise, moons disappear then burst again into full spheres of light. But the rhythm remains fixed.Â
I gulp the last ounces of water and grab my keys just as the clock digits change.Â
Last week, I reached and surpassed my hundredth shift as a resident physician in the
An Apology
Jordan Grumet
I’m sorry, Mrs. Lewis, for not making it to the hospital to see you yesterday….
Yesterday was one of those days when I felt like I could never catch up. My wife was going downtown for work, and we had to get up early. While she prepared, I helped my two-year-old son get dressed. We walked my wife to the train, then waited for the nanny. She was running late: I finally made it out of the house by 7:20, ten minutes before a meeting at the office. Since I didn’t have any patients in the hospital–or so I thought–I could go directly.
Recovery Room
Warren Holleman
We’re sitting in a circle: seven women and me. Most are in their thirties and forties, and in their second, third or fourth month of sobriety. They look professional in the suits they’ve assembled from the donations closet of our inner-city recovery center.
I start things off by reminding everyone that this is the last day of the group. The last hour, in fact.
All eyes turn to Dorothy.
Dorothy is a proud woman, tall and tough and strong. And a former track and field star, although now she’s wheelchair-bound.
She speaks in a deep, husky, monotone punctuated occasionally by dramatic earthquakes–otherwise known as spastic tremors. But in all this time, she’s avoided talking about herself, fueling the suspicion that she’s hiding something