doctor stories Archives - Page 4 of 18

His Mother’s Son

Minal Dhamankar November 14, 2023 15 Comments

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

On a crisp Saturday morning in October, I drove through the early morning fog to the salon for my regular hair-coloring appointment.

I looked forward to these appointments. The hour spent there was my “me” time, during which I enjoyed lighthearted conversations with my colorist, Tina, about movies or fashion while she did my hair. These chats, which took me to a different world—the world of normal people—were followed by a cup of rejuvenating herbal tea. After a hard week as an oncologist in a busy clinic, it was a welcome relief.

This time was different, however.

Scenes From an Emergency Room–October 7, 2023

Hadar Sadeh November 5, 2023 10 Comments

Editor’s Note: Today we carry a submission received from an Israeli child-and-adolescent psychiatrist who works at Soroka Medical Center, about twenty-five miles from the Gaza Strip. In this account (translated by colleague Jennie Goldstein), Hadar Sadeh describes her experiences dealing with victims of violent trauma on October 7. As events have unfolded, we at Pulse are acutely aware that many stories on both sides of this conflict need to be told.

Bella’s Not a Girl Anymore

Marc D. Wager October 20, 2023 5 Comments

For more than thirty years, I’ve practiced general pediatrics and adolescent medicine with a private group practice in New Rochelle, just north of New York City.

Today I saw an adolescent girl for a checkup. Before this, I had seen her for a sick visit or two, but I didn’t know her all that well. She was accompanied by her father, whom I was meeting for the first time.

I started the checkup, as I always do, by asking if they had any special concerns.

Blacker Than Bald Eagles

Nnamdi Orakpo October 17, 2023 13 Comments

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

In the 1990s, having grown up in Texas and spent the summer before college playing semiprofessional basketball in Australia, I went to medical school at Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, in Mexico.

While there, I experienced a striking and unexpected sense of safety. Although the people there normally never see Black people, they treated me differently from the way Black people are treated in the US.

Finding Freedom in Difference

Wendy Alexandra Smethurst October 3, 2023 4 Comments

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

It was 3:00 am on my third night shift out of five, in a busy inner-city hospital in Sydney.

Having just reviewed six suicidal patients back to back, I felt tired and frustrated.

If I have to see another suicidal patient tonight…Why don’t they go and be suicidal somewhere else? I wondered wearily, then felt ashamed at the adversarial division I’d created: patient vs. doctor, them against me.

The Judgment of Solomon

Ethan Dmitrovsky September 29, 2023 8 Comments

As a cancer doctor, I’m no stranger to asking patients with a life-threatening malignancy about their wishes. My question generally goes something like this: “Going forward, do you want to pursue intensive treatment, or forgo it in favor of enjoying the time that remains to you, with relief for your symptoms as needed?”

Asking this question is an intrinsic part of my job. But when I found myself having to ask it of a family member, I felt shaken. This was different.

Borderlines

Joo-Inn Chew September 26, 2023 11 Comments

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

When I started as an intern at a regional Australian hospital in the late Nineties, there was a patient—let’s call her Laura—who was notorious among the emergency-department staff.

Laura had sliced up much of her available skin over the years and had moved on to swallowing cutlery and razor blades. She’d had numerous operations to remove the silverware in her stomach, and countless sutures to stitch up the lacerations atop the old scars on her limbs and trunk. Over and over she would be discharged, only to turn up again with yet another macabre self-mutilation.

Each time, the surgical and emergency teams rolled their eyes and gritted their teeth.

Kids Always Know

Nancy L. Glass September 1, 2023 17 Comments

This is a story about failures. First, it’s about my inability as a pediatric hospice physician to do the one most important job in this tender space. Second, it’s about well-meaning, loving parents’ inability to do their part in that job.

Jacob was a smart, funny, elementary-age kid, great with Legos.

My Mother’s Keeper

Marjorie Ordene August 11, 2023 13 Comments

It is a mitzvah to take care of your parents: “Honor thy father and thy mother.” And caring for people comes naturally to me. I’m a physician; this is what I do.

But when my father looked to me to cure my eighty-five-year-old mother’s dementia, saying, “You’re the doctor! Help her!” I knew he was asking too much.

And yet. How could I stand idly by while my mother’s mental acuity slowly drained away?

Due Date

Georgia Eldridge April 14, 2023 12 Comments

It’s the bright orange color that catches my eye. Nestled in a box under my home office desk, alongside unused breast pads and pumping supplies left over from the birth of my first daughter.

My first, because there should have been a second. A girl.

High Stakes

Aarya Krishnan Rajalakshmi February 10, 2023 7 Comments

As a practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist, I’ve been trained to treat depression and evaluate suicidal risk. Yet when it comes to working with an adolescent who expresses a wish not to exist, trying to clarify what’s actually meant feels daunting.

I’m reminded of this one Monday morning as thirteen-year-old Paula sits across from me in the interview room.

Time Splintered

Carol Scott-Conner January 13, 2023 12 Comments

Time fractured when my first husband died.

There was a before, which no longer existed, and an after, which was unimaginable.

In between, the thinnest–unfathomably thin–line, was the today. The today meant putting one foot in front of the other. One today led to the next today. And finally the year was over.

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