doctor as patient Archives

Student, Interrupted: A Story in Three Parts

Lori Salter April 3, 2026 13 Comments

Part I: Student, Interrupted

During my psychiatry rotation as a third-year medical student, I observed patients pacing the halls in socks, their shoelaces sealed in plastic bags (to prevent possible self-harm) along with the rest of their belongings. No phones. No laptops. Just the steady rhythm of footsteps looping around the nurses’ station.

A few months later, I found myself walking that same loop—not as a student but as a patient. My shoelaces were stored away, and I was the one being rounded on.

Moment of Truth

Nancy J. Rennert March 13, 2026 9 Comments

Twenty-five-year-old male, Type 1 diabetes with recent left-leg amputation, poor glucose control.   

Routine case, I figured. I was the senior endocrinologist at a community health center, teaching resident physicians and caring for medically underserved patients.

I had prepared a chair to my immediate right for the medical resident, Anna, so that by turning my head slightly away from my desktop computer I would be able to see her face clearly. Although she didn’t know it, I was deaf–and with one of my cochlear implants failing, I needed to lip-read to understand speech.

Empty

HS February 20, 2026 7 Comments

In early February 2020, my husband and I checked into a quaint condo in New Orleans’ French Quarter. We needed a break from our usual lives: My husband worked as a psychiatrist, listening to his patients’ stories of trauma and pain; he was exhausted. I too am a physician; I felt burned out by my administrative job, where I was regularly yelled at and insulted by other physicians.

We hadn’t been coping well. Every evening we sat in front of the television to numb ourselves and quiet the stress enough to go to bed and fall asleep.

Alice

Heather Finlay-Morreale December 19, 2025 11 Comments

Lying stuck in my hospital bed during the latest of many hospital stays, I reflected on the drastic turns and changes my life had taken.

For ten years I’d enjoyed a busy, fulfilling life as a pediatrician, educator and writer. Then, in the summer of 2020, my life had lurched from 100 miles per hour to a full stop. I’d become progressively weaker and easily grew winded when walking.

“I Know You Don’t Want to Be Here…”

Deborah Pierce February 14, 2025 10 Comments

It’s been an interesting year. Eight months after having a large kidney stone removed, I was diagnosed with very early stage cancer—small, low grade, etc. The treatment (surgery) would very likely cure the cancer. The specter of cancer meant that I found this surgery physically easier, but emotionally much harder.

The aftermath of the surgery was interesting in unexpected ways, too.

Six months after surgery, at one of my periodic follow-up visits, I was sitting awkwardly at the end of the exam table, dressed in the standard patient gown and sheet, and waiting to see Becky, the nurse practitioner I’d been assigned to that day.

Doctor Becomes Patient

Galya Lodish August 16, 2024 14 Comments

The diagnosis is here
I knew it was coming
But did not think it would arrive this soon
“You’re very young to have it” the doctor said
My bones brittle, already
At age 50
I feel fragile

What’s Wrong With You?

Jessica May 21, 2024 5 Comments

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

“What’s wrong with you?”

The words cut through my mind and hit me in the gut. My fragile fifteen-year-old ego splintered like a glass cup slipping through fingers onto hardwood.

Tears welled up, and my lips pursed, ready to respond. But I couldn’t find the words—for in that moment, I truly knew that I was broken, I was ugly, I was wrong. And even my mother knew it.

“How Long Have You Had These Symptoms, Doctor?”

Deborah Pierce April 5, 2024 5 Comments

“How long have you had these symptoms?”

Dr. Quantrell’s tone was kind and inquisitive, but with the CT scan on the computer between us displaying a two-centimeter kidney stone, I couldn’t help hearing: How long have you been ignoring this problem?

Much has been written about the experience of doctor as patient. Like many of my colleagues before me, I’d fallen into the trap of trying to diagnose myself before calling my family physician.

Our Shared Journey

Courtney Burnett March 12, 2024 6 Comments

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

It took a terrifying and life-changing experience of being different for me to realize a fundamental truth: I’m the same as everyone else.

This truth has redefined my goals and reshaped the way I practice medicine.

At age twenty-nine, during my third and final year of internal-medicine residency, I received a diagnosis of a rare and malignant brain cancer called anaplastic astrocytoma. Quite suddenly, I was different.

Brain Scan

Jenna Le February 9, 2024 5 Comments

I slide into the MRI machine.
Sleds slide downhill, propelled by their own weight;
my movement’s horizontal, made through means

outside of my control: a man in green
scrubs bops a button, turning me to freight
that’s fed into the MRI machine.

Burnt

Maureen Hirthler January 26, 2024 13 Comments

You never forget the smell of charred human flesh. It permeates your skin, your hair, your nose and your mind. It never leaves. You may try to describe it, but there is no equivalent. Not barbecue, not melted plastic, not wood; the smell of the flesh of a once-living human being stands on its own. Even after thirty years, my mind holds the smell in its broken places.

They said it was a Molotov cocktail thrown into the house because of a drug deal gone bad. The man who was the target jumped out a window and left his girlfriend and children behind. The fire consumed everything.

Silenced

Donna Lambers January 16, 2024 30 Comments

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

As a maternal/fetal medicine specialist for twenty-four years, I’d always felt that speaking to my patients, peers and the hospital staff was one of my God-given talents. I’m very good at giving bad news to expectant parents about their fetal diagnosis—or I used to be.

All of that changed six years ago, when I had a thyroidectomy for thyroid cancer. During the surgery, both of my recurrent laryngeal nerves were paralyzed, and so both of my vocal cords are paralyzed.

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Tag: doctor as patient

Student, Interrupted: A Story in Three Parts

Moment of Truth

Empty

Alice

“I Know You Don’t Want to Be Here…”

Doctor Becomes Patient

What’s Wrong With You?

“How Long Have You Had These Symptoms, Doctor?”

Our Shared Journey

Brain Scan

Burnt

Silenced

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