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The Black Dog

Julia Loosen July 28, 2023 9 Comments

It was a particularly sunny morning, and golden light streamed through the clinic windows. Seated in my preceptor’s office, I scanned her list of patients for the day. As a first-year medical student, I was to do preliminary interviews with some, and I hoped to find a few cases that would offer a chance to test my diagnostic reasoning.

The list held a lot of the usual–medication follow-ups, annual physicals, well-child checks—plus Ernest, a seventy-eight-year-old man who’d come into the emergency room for a urinary-catheter issue. This seemed promising, so I volunteered to see him.

Northern Lights

Becca Baisch December 2, 2022 17 Comments

“Let me die,” you say.

You’ve listed the reasons, presented the arguments: You’re a burden, a mere speck in a world of billions, one that will not be missed. A life that never asked to be born. Why prolong this pain?

“Please, let me die,” you say again, this time with a sob that allows no more words.

I hear you, I do.

ECT Saved My Life

Shannon Weisleder March 11, 2022 17 Comments

It was July, and the weather outside my window was sunny—but inside, it was a different story.

At the beginning of the summer I’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I myself thought that I suffered from major depressive disorder.

I felt as though I were sinking into a black hole. My medications didn’t seem to be working, and my psychiatrist was out of the country for the summer.

The Lightest Blue Eyes

Catherine Hickey February 26, 2021 9 Comments

Seventeen years ago, I was a senior psychiatry resident, moonlighting on weekends in the psych unit at a small rural hospital. Usually the unit was quiet. In this remote corner of northern Canada, we were taught to value resources and avoid “unnecessary” psychiatry admissions.

Arriving one rainy Friday, I headed to the ER to let them know I was there. Among the mostly frail, elderly patients, one person stood out: a healthy-looking woman in her early thirties, about my age.

Unforgettable

David Coulter September 4, 2020 15 Comments

I was young when I met Larry. Well, not that young: I was thirty-one. My medical training–thirteen years in all–was finally over, and I was working as an instructor in the child-neurology clinic at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and caring for kids with epilepsy.

My patient Larry was seventeen. A stocky, dark-haired, nonathletic boy with borderline intellectual disability, he suffered from depression, and my notes mentioned his “pugnacious personality.”

Whatever Else

Jack Coulehan April 3, 2020 6 Comments

Of course, I wanted to save you
from all this–from machines
and plastic tubes, from the shooters
with their dyes, from the guys
who scan your organs
for the truth, from waits in cold rooms
whose lights illuminate your life
and make it…nothing. I respected
the darkness in you–your son
dead in a senseless crash, the stroke
itself, your husband’s absence.

The Big Chill

Aarya Krishnan Rajalakshmi December 6, 2019 7 Comments

Tonight was yet another night on call in our emergency department–a chilly winter night on which I did a cruel deed: I discharged a homeless man back out into the cold.

This is a routine event in the life of psychiatry residents like myself. Normally, no one would bat an eye. It shouldn’t have mattered to me, either–except that the previous night I’d had to walk home from the hospital parking garage in decidedly adverse weather.

The streets were covered with slush and ice, which, along with the heavy rain and bitter winds, made my usually effortless fifteen-minute walk a nightmare. As wind gusts kept upturning my umbrella, I struggled to manage it while also trying to keep my feet from slipping on the ice.

Right Coat Ceremony

Shadi Ahmadmehrabi August 31, 2018 11 Comments

Shadi Ahmadmehrabi ~

It was my first day of orientation at medical school. In a hallway stood a coat rack overflowing with white garments. I set down my accumulated papers, reached for a hanger and, for the first time ever, shrugged first one arm and then the other into a white coat.

It was too large, but I had no other options. The unisex coats ran from XXS to XXL, but the smallest had all been claimed.

As I clumsily buttoned my coat on the right (women’s coats button on the left), I couldn’t help seeing this as a physical reminder that, as my mentors had warned, medicine continues to be male-dominated, and that I’d need to pick my battles.

Depressed

Ronna L. Edelstein May 4, 2018 19 Comments

Ronna Edelstein ~

Announce to friends that you have cancer, and they will probably react with sympathy and compassion. Tell them that you’ve broken your leg, and they’ll offer to get your groceries and drive you to medical appointments.

Share that you suffer from depression–and the sound of silence will fill your head.

Depression has been my companion for as long as I can remember. My maternal grandmother, who immigrated to this country from Romania, spent her days struggling to raise four children in a land whose customs and language she never learned. Her husband, my grandfather, rarely stayed home; when not traveling to eke out a living as a peddler, he would socialize with his cronies at a park or synagogue.

Riding Out the Storm

Dan Yashinsky February 2, 2018 18 Comments

Dan Yashinsky ~

In Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, if a blizzard keeps you in your neighbor’s house, they say you’ve been “storm-stayed.” I first learned this term from a storyteller in the Maritimes, and it’s come to hold special meaning for me and those I work with.

I am the storyteller-in-residence at a research and teaching hospital for the elderly, in Toronto. My work here, known as “storycare,” reflects the institution’s philosophy that literature and storytelling are essential to health care.

Every week, I work with clinicians and therapists to bring storycare to patients in the palliative-care, rehab and long-term-care units. Twice weekly, I head to the fourth floor to co-lead storytelling circles for the geriatric psychiatry patients.

Why Aren’t You Depressed?

Tess Timmes October 6, 2017 2 Comments

Tess Timmes ~

“Please walk slowly,” cautioned Sunita, my interpreter, as I crept down the stony switchback trail towards the rural Nepali village of Dhulikhel. Sunita, in her petite navy ballet flats, hopped down the rocks as easily as the speckled goats grazing nearby.

Emboldened by her speed, I stepped along eagerly, only to catch my size-ten neon running sneaker on a root and splat face-first into the dust. Looking up, I saw four women standing outside their clay-walled homes, their hands pressed to their mouths, their eyes sparkling with stifled laughter. Talk about making an entrance….

After finishing my third year of medical school, I was taking a year off to pursue my masters degree in public health. Through my research

The Afterworld

Clementine King June 30, 2017 No Comments

Clementine King

About the artist:

“Clementine King” is an assistant professor of public health and an artist.

About the artwork:

“This graffiti scene struck me as I made my way through a tough day with depression. It must have been created by multiple artists, at different times, with different intentions. But taken together, at this moment, was there a message in it? The peaceful world above, the chaos below and the light on the far end of the walkway? Who knows, it may be painted over tomorrow.”

Visuals Editor:

Sara Kohrt

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

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

Tag: depression

The Black Dog

Northern Lights

ECT Saved My Life

The Lightest Blue Eyes

Unforgettable

Whatever Else

The Big Chill

Right Coat Ceremony

Depressed

Riding Out the Storm

Why Aren’t You Depressed?

The Afterworld

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

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

Tag: depression

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