acceptance Archives

Checking Our Assumptions

Fidelindo Lim October 15, 2024 6 Comments

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

“Don’t leave menus in the apartments!” a voice called sternly as I stood by the elevators in the building where I live.

The speaker was a substitute doorman I’d never seen before. I was holding a plastic bag typically associated with Chinese takeout food, and I realized that he assumed I was there to deliver meals to weary or sedentary New Yorkers.

A variation of this scene took place another time with a different doorman.

Cherish the Gift

Donna Chacko November 24, 2023 17 Comments

It was a perfect autumn day in St. Petersburg, Florida. The year was 1999, but I still remember that day’s sparkly blue sky. I was driving down a busy street, peering at the signs to locate my destination. Finally I spotted the nursing home, a two-story concrete structure, grey and uninviting. I took a deep breath, parked and walked to the entrance.

Entering the small lobby, I was overwhelmed by the nauseating smell of stale urine. To reach the front desk, I had to weave through a jumble of wheelchairs, some holding slouched bodies, others supporting patients who called out and reached to touch me as I walked by.

The Case of the Lima Bean

Matthew Webb November 21, 2014 7 Comments

Matthew Webb

“Matthew, go see this lady about her breast mass,” says my attending physician at the clinic where, as a third-year medical student, I’m doing a family-medicine rotation.

Okay, I think. I’ve done my ob/gyn rotation; breast masses are no big deal.

I don my short white coat, freshly baked from sitting in the back of my car as I drove to work on this oppressively hot morning. As I sling the stethoscope around my neck, I feel my inner voice (my constant companion amid the stresses of medical school) gearing up, ready to offer insights, questions, distractions….

Ms. Taylor

Remya Tharackal Ravindran June 11, 2010 No Comments

Remya Tharackal Ravindran

Ms. Taylor was one of three newly hospitalized patients I saw that morning. She was a previously healthy woman in her forties, single and childless, who worked in the fashion industry. As I scanned her admission notes, three things stood out: shortness of breath, elevated calcium level and kidney failure. I read on, thinking of possible causes, then something caught my eye. Her breast exam had revealed multiple breast masses, and her chest x-ray showed fluid-filled lungs.

Everything fell into place: cancer, first in the breast and then spreading to the lungs. I was spared a diagnostic challenge, but I now had to face something more difficult–talking with Ms. Taylor about her diagnosis. Did she even know what it was? It didn’t

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: acceptance

Checking Our Assumptions

Cherish the Gift

The Case of the Lima Bean

Ms. Taylor

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fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: acceptance

Checking Our Assumptions

Cherish the Gift

The Case of the Lima Bean

Ms. Taylor

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