The call came at midnight. “He died,” the voice on the other end said. No emotion.
“How are you, Alice?” I asked.
Startled out of sleep, I reflexively reach for my beeping pager. For a split second, I lie poised between wakefulness and terror in the pitch-dark resident call room, not sure where I am or what happened. I resolve to sleep with the lights on from now on.
I dial the call-back number.
“Pod A,” a caffeinated voice chirps. It’s Candice, one of the nurses.
“Hi. Amy here, returning a page,” I murmur.
“Oh, hi, Dr. Cowan,” she says. “I just wanted to let you know that the family is all here. They’re ready for the meeting.”
Marc Tumerman
This is a story of two deaths. That these patients’ stories intersected on the same morning, in the same building, in two adjacent rooms, has left me thinking about them now that the day is almost done.
I was surprised to see Mrs. Stevens’ name on my schedule today. She came to the office last week, and I felt sure that she’d be too weak for another visit. But I was glad she’d made it, as I’ve become quite fond of her.
She’s seventy, and dying of metastatic lung cancer. She’s a lifelong smoker, but at this point I’m not worried about cause and effect, accountability and responsibility. None of that changes what I must do now as her physician.
Pris Campbell
His heart
is a battlefield
of scar tissue
and hardened walls
from radiation.
So certain the tumor
in his throat would take him
to his knees, wrench his life away,
they brought forth
the beast…that fairy tale
of modern medicine
gone wrong…and now
As a family-practice resident, I’ve found that a premium is placed not only on my clinical acumen but also on how well I respond to my patients’ mental and emotional experience of illness.
Yet the work of learning to be a doctor is just that–work. And in overwhelming amounts. Time management becomes ever more vital: As I take the time needed to gently break bad news and to console a patient, I must also stay conscious of the next patient’s appointment, the next phone call to make, the next exam to study for, the next lecture to attend, the next research project to complete and the next practice guideline to learn.
Wind scatters leaves as I approach the house.
The geranium he hung lies on the floor.
The same porch board’s loose. The coir mat sheds.
I fumble for the key and push at the door
that opens to guitar amps, music books
and cardboard boxes left by the man
who asked me not to touch his clothes
or toss the newspapers till he came home
from the hospital, sorted through the stuff
once and for all to organize his life.
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