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Holding Out Hope

Ben Colton November 7, 2025 3 Comments

In my twelve years as an American family doctor working in low-resource countries in the Middle East, I’ve seen and treated countless patients with little to no hope for improvement in their physical and emotional problems. Seeing patients in these circumstances is emotionally exhausting, but the importance of my role in supporting these patients continues to draw me back in.

Reflecting on the challenges they face, I often think of one in particular: a baby named Hiba.

Hiba’s mother, Layla, had received very little prenatal care during her pregnancy, as is common among poor, rural patients in low-income countries. She’d suffered from several prenatal complications, and Hiba was born via an emergency cesarean section.

Hiba’s condition was precarious.

A Different Kind of Emergency

Anthony P. Gulotta September 26, 2025 3 Comments

Curled on a gurney beneath the fluorescent glare of the hospital room lights, a girl no more than eight clutched a stuffed giraffe. Her small frame, the slight downward tilt of her eyes, and her delicate jaw and thin upper lip were the visible signs of fetal alcohol syndrome.

This was Elle, whom I encountered as a medical student during an emergency-medicine rotation.

Choosing to Believe

Dua Hassan September 5, 2025 8 Comments

“We got into a fight last night,” Maria said, more to herself than to me, her fingers tracing invisible patterns on her jeans.

“About what?” I asked.

“I told Louis, ‘God doesn’t exist—because if God did exist, why would this be happening to you?’ ” she answered.

She stood and started pacing the hospital room where her son, fifteen, had spent the past two weeks.

Report From Gaza: Seeing Patients Among the Bombs

Sami Mahmoud Magharie August 12, 2025 28 Comments

I am twenty-six years old, and in June 2023 I graduated from Al-Azhar University-Gaza (AUG) Faculty of Medicine, in Northern Gaza. Two months into my internship at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, the Gaza War started.

I was assigned to the emergency department for fifteen months, serving as a junior surgeon to treat patients injured by bombs—shrapnel wounds in the hips, back and head; crushed arms and legs; burns everywhere; difficulty breathing; internal bleeding.

I tried to block out the shouts, crying and moaning and focus on the task and the patient in front of me—while, in the background, bombs were exploding.

Recovering From Moral Injury

Kim Bui June 13, 2025 10 Comments

The nurse’s murmur was gentle: “Dr. Bui, Ms. Sanchez is still waiting for her Pap test.”

More than an hour earlier, I’d left Ms. Sanchez waiting in an exam room while I rushed to see the rest of the patients on my schedule. And then I’d forgotten about her.

I’d had the inevitable difficult moments in my early career as a family doctor, but this marked a new low.

When Dads Fail

Zoran Naumovski April 18, 2025 8 Comments

My youngest son Camron, was only ten years old—and he was feeling bereft, because he’d lost all connection to his friends. His iPad was on the fritz, less than a year after we’d purchased it.

Camron had yet to dive into the electronic age as his classmates had done. Mostly he played outside with his dogs and cats, fed and chased his goats and bounced on the trampoline with his brother. But during the one hour per day when we permitted him to play games online with his friends, he grinned from ear to ear and laughed nonstop.

Now his iPad had quit working.

“I Fell Out of the Sky”

Victor Fornari January 24, 2025 34 Comments

It had happened before; the previous time, it was a phone call on a Tuesday morning. This time, the message came by email on a Friday.

“Do you remember me?” wrote the sender.

“Do I remember you?” I wrote back. “I think of you often and fondly, although it has been over twenty-five years since we last spoke, and thirty-four years since we first met.”

The Art of Listening

Yaya January 3, 2025 9 Comments

Reflecting on the start of my medical studies and career, I realize that it took me more than ten years to refine my ability to practice the art of listening. Partly that may have been because English is not my mother tongue; but it was also because listening is an arduous task. As Kate Murphy writes in her book You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing & Why It Matters: “Understanding is the goal of listening, and it takes effort.”

My first hard lesson in this area occurred when I was a medical student, doing research at a needle-exchange program. A patient named Haris had been screened for HIV, and his test result was positive. He was the first patient to whom I had to give such bad news.

Bread and Butter

Samantha L. Wood December 27, 2024 6 Comments

Shattering the relative peace of an early Sunday morning, a chorus of assorted ringtones echoes through the emergency department where I work as an attending physician. The noise is a heads-up from an incoming ambulance, directed to the ED staff members’ portable phones.

I sigh and set down the cup of cafeteria coffee I’d been enjoying: The pace of the day is about to pick up. I unclip my phone from the waistband of my scrub pants. Sitting next to me, Ben, the senior resident, grabs his phone from the pocket of his fleece vest.

Bea and Me

Katherine Roth December 17, 2024 7 Comments

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

On the night Bea’s chest pain began—when the heaviness like a fist took her breath away, the beads of sweat gathering on her forehead—it frightened her, as it did not stop. She was alone, and as she reached for the phone, she paused. Who should she call?

The pain increased. She reluctantly dialed 911. She mumbled the answers to the operator and remembered to open her door before collapsing on the couch.

How You Made Me Feel

Dustin Daniel Flannery December 6, 2024 9 Comments

The toughest work emails always seem to come on days when I am post-call, feeling tired and pensive. This particular email came from Patient and Guest Relations at the urban hospital where I practice as a neonatologist.

“I received feedback from a patient who claims that she had a negative interaction with you…during her C-section surgery. She is requesting a visit from you….”

My heart sank.

Surviving Blackness in Medicine

Omar M. Young and Camille A. Clare November 26, 2024 4 Comments

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

Omar M. Young and Camille A. Clare are two Black academic OB/GYNs from different walks of life. Together, they offer their respective observations on what it means to be Black in medicine. “Through speaking from our lived experiences, we hope to help those who have historically been minoritized in medicine know that they are seen, that they are heard and that their experiences are valid.”

I survived — Omar M. Young

The sun was gloriously blinding, and the air as calm as could be on a warm June morning, more than a decade ago.

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

Tag: doctor stories

Holding Out Hope

A Different Kind of Emergency

Choosing to Believe

Report From Gaza: Seeing Patients Among the Bombs

Recovering From Moral Injury

When Dads Fail

“I Fell Out of the Sky”

The Art of Listening

Bread and Butter

Bea and Me

How You Made Me Feel

Surviving Blackness in Medicine

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

Tag: doctor stories

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