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Restricted Parking

Daniel Becker February 24, 2012 No Comments

Daniel Becker

In silhouette, in pantomime, in slow motion,
she’s dropping him off, but instead of

a see-you-later kiss, they slap palms, high fives,
except they miss–

twice the sound of one hand clapping–
and there they go again: arms raised, hands poised,

holding then un-holding their applause
as they deliver unto one another. Meanwhile,

that’s my space they linger over.
A kiss is just a kiss, but this

is a circuit to complete, an orbit to repeat,
a moment that needs time

the way a couplet needs to rhyme.
Parting is to parking as sweet sorrow is to sour,

and more so–trust me–if they’re here tomorrow.

About the poet:

Daniel Becker practices and teaches internal medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine

I was in my third year of medical school, and the initial week of my first-ever hospital clerkship had passed without incident. I showed up on time, did what I was told, stepped on no toes and followed my patients as well as I could.

At the close of that week, however, my intern pulled me aside to ask, “Remember learning how to put an IV in a mannequin during the workshop earlier today? Well, there’s a patient in radiology, waiting for a CT scan. The tech can’t flush the IV, and I need you to do it. If you can’t, put in a new one.”

Tech? Flush? I meditated on my intern’s words and realized that this would be my first unsupervised procedure.

Lost in the Numbers

Don Stewart December 3, 2010 No Comments

Donald Stewart

A nurse entered the operating room; her eyes–the only part of her face visible above her surgical mask–held a look of mild distress. She stood quietly until the surgeon noticed her.

“What is it?” he said.

“It’s your patient in 208, Doctor. His pressure is 82.”

“Systolic?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

The nurse was referring to Mr. Johnson. The previous week, we’d removed a small tumor from his lung without difficulty–and, until now, without complications. He’d been transferred out of Intensive Care to the main surgical floor, and that very morning we had removed the last drainage tubes from his chest. He was scheduled to go home the next day.

Now his blood pressure was plummeting.

“Doctor Stewart, break scrub and go see what’s going

The Case of the Screaming Man

Paula Lyons February 26, 2010 No Comments

Paula Lyons

As everyone knows, the human body has orifices. Occasionally, these become occluded, or occupied, by things that aren’t supposed to be there. Every doctor knows this, as does almost everyone else. Who hasn’t heard, as a child, the cautionary phrase “Don’t stick beans up your nose”?

Human nature being what it is, almost every clinician must deal with foreign objects–flora, fauna–that have been put into places where they don’t belong. Sometimes, though, “beans” can materialize without a patient’s permission.

Here is one such case–a personal favorite of mine–that I’ve mentally entitled “The Screaming Man.”

I was back in the furthermost part of the clinic, arguing with an insurance company representative about the need for a patient’s CT scan, when one

The Resilient Heart

Paula Lyons October 30, 2009 No Comments

Paula Lyons

He was applying for a job on a refuse truck working for the City. This is a very good job for someone whose hiring prospects are otherwise limited. Excellent benefits, all state and federal holidays off, health insurance for oneself and one’s family, physical exercise in the fresh air. (All right, this was Camden, New Jersey, so exercise in some kind of air.) And one more plus: If the team is efficient and hardworking and get through their rounds by 11:30 am or noon, they can take the rest of the day off, yet get paid as if they’d worked the whole 5 am-to-1 pm shift.

I was the doctor doing his pre-placement physical exam–designed to determine if the potential employee has

Intern’s Journal–Surprises

Jennifer Reckrey January 30, 2009 No Comments

Jennifer Reckrey

Editor’s note: Jennifer Reckrey is a family medicine resident in New York City. Each week while she was an intern, Dr. Reckrey recorded some of her experiences as a brand-new doctor. Today’s stories are from weeks number nine and twenty-five.

Week Nine

I dreaded my rotation in the Intensive Care Unit. Though all the tools to keep a body alive are right there, their continuous bells and beeps jangle my nerves. I’m always afraid that in this place I will be called on to act decisively and invasively. And my mind will go blank. I will hesitate, and that hesitation will make an already awful situation worse. But even more than that, I dreaded this rotation because I think of the ICU

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: humor

Restricted Parking

On the Bottom Rung

Lost in the Numbers

The Case of the Screaming Man

The Resilient Heart

Intern’s Journal–Surprises

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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: humor

Restricted Parking

On the Bottom Rung

Lost in the Numbers

The Case of the Screaming Man

The Resilient Heart

Intern’s Journal–Surprises

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