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One Hundred Wiser

Anne K. Merritt April 22, 2011 No Comments

Anne K. Merritt

I gather my belongings: stained white coat, stethoscope, pen light, black ballpoint. I stuff the last two granola bars into my canvas bag. I glance at the clock on the microwave, which is three minutes fast.

Twenty-two minutes until my shift begins. One minute before I will lock the door to my apartment.

Precision is critical: ER shifts change fast and blend together, from late nights to early mornings to mid-afternoons. Suns set and rise, moons disappear then burst again into full spheres of light. But the rhythm remains fixed.

I gulp the last ounces of water and grab my keys just as the clock digits change.

Last week, I reached and surpassed my hundredth shift as a resident physician in the

A Medical School Professor Calls It A Day

Neal Whitman January 21, 2011 No Comments

Neal Whitman

First Grade, long ago:
The bell was rung.
School’s out.
The Last Day of School!
A lie, of course.
The end of summer proved it so.
But today truly is
My Last Day of School.
Today I retired:
took my last breath
as a professor.
But what had I professed?
First, that a preceptor without example is a vain thing.
True teachers dare to be exemplars.
Second, that inspiration is an active process.
A principle of respiratory physiology,
but also a precept of pedagogy.
Finally, a variation of the Shaker saying–
Every breath a prayer.
Every breath a lesson.

About the poet:

Neal Whitman is a University of Utah School of Medicine Professor Emeritus now living in Pacific Grove, California, where he tootles

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

Deja-vu

Justin Sanders October 1, 2010 No Comments

It looked like the skin of an orange–peau d’orange, in medspeak. My fellow interns and I had heard about it in medical school; some had even seen it before. As our attending physician undraped Mrs. Durante’s breast one sunny morning during our first month as interns, we knew that what we were seeing was bad.

Mrs. Durante wore a hospital gown and a brightly colored head scarf. She looked like a child lying in the bed: small, delicate, demure. Her face was pretty, her voice soft and deep. By contrast, the mass rounding out the side of her right breast bulged aggressively. It was firm to the touch, reddish against her olive skin. When asked, she said it hurt.

Affected

Jessica Tekla Les September 24, 2010 No Comments

Jessica Tekla Les

During my third year of medical school I was performing a routine breast exam, more for practice than anything else. I was trying the concentric-circles-around-the-nipple technique, one of several I’d been taught. About halfway through the right breast I found a lima-bean-sized lump, not far from the breastbone. I took liberties with this particular exam. I poked the lump, tried to move the lump, squished down on the lump.

I took such liberties because it was my own breast.

At the time, I responded clinically. I thought to myself, I am twenty-seven years old, with no family history and no risk factors. Nothing to worry about. I knew the likely diagnosis, a fibroadenoma or localized fibrocystic change, both common in my age group. I

Broken

Jordan Grumet September 3, 2010 No Comments

Jordan Grumet

I was a third-year medical student in the first week of my obstetrics rotation. The obstetrics program was known to be high-pressure, its residents among the best. Mostly women, they were a hard-core group–smart, efficient, motivated–and they scared the heck out of us medical students.

I remember the day clearly: Not only was I on call, but I was assigned to the chief resident’s team. I felt petrified.

We’d started morning rounds as usual, running down the list of patients in labor. Five minutes in, my chief got a “911” page from the ER, located in the next building. This seldom happened, so instead of calling back, we ran downstairs and over to the trauma bay.

We walked into pure chaos. The patient

Dr. B Gets an F

Gregory Shumer August 20, 2010 No Comments

Gregory Shumer

Flashback to a year ago: I’m a first-year medical student–a fledgling, a novice–trying to integrate countless facts into a coherent understanding of how the human body works. Professors slam me with two months’ worth of information inside of two weeks’ time. They tell us that this is a necessary process, one that all doctors must go through: we must first learn the science of medicine before we can master the art of healing.

My life revolves around tests, labs, deadlines, long hours in the library and very close relationships with the baristas at Starbucks.

In the midst of this chaos, I developed a crippling ankle condition that transformed me into a concerned patient for the first time in my life. The pain started

Trauma in the ER

Michael Gutierrez July 9, 2010 No Comments

Michael Gutierrez

It was 5 pm on a cold November day. I was a third-year medical student heading into my first night on surgery call.

Changing into my scrubs, I wondered what it would be like. I knew that we had to carry a “trauma pager” and, when paged, get to the ER as fast as possible. There my job would be to listen as the ER physician called out his exam findings and enter them on a history-and-physical form.

I felt a mix of things. I was excited about the learning possibilities, but I also knew that whoever gets wheeled through the ER doors is someone’s daughter, son, mother or father. I decided not to think too hard–I’d just take what came my way

The Winner

Majid Khan July 2, 2010 No Comments

Majid Khan

I pull up on the side of the road on this rainy British summer’s day. The rain doesn’t make it easy to get my doctor’s bag out of the trunk, which I do in a hurry so I can make my way to the house where I’ve been asked to visit a 37-year-old man named Kenneth.

This really isn’t ideal. Now my bag is wet, my papers are wet, my trousers are wet and my mood is wet. I didn’t want to do this visit anyway, but I’m still in my last year of training before becoming a full-fledged GP, and I’ve been given the task by one of the senior GPs in the practice.

“Cough/temperature” says the note the receptionist has scribbled.

Stuck

Ken Gordon June 18, 2010 No Comments

I have never told this story to anyone.

It all started one night about ten years ago, three months into my internship. I was on call, having just admitted a man with a possible meningitis.

He now lay curled up in fetal position on the bed in front of me, looking thin and ill. Preparing to administer a lumbar puncture (a diagnostic test that involves removing fluid from the spinal canal), I gently pushed his head further down towards his legs.

Ms. Taylor

Remya Tharackal Ravindran June 11, 2010 No Comments

Remya Tharackal Ravindran

Ms. Taylor was one of three newly hospitalized patients I saw that morning. She was a previously healthy woman in her forties, single and childless, who worked in the fashion industry. As I scanned her admission notes, three things stood out: shortness of breath, elevated calcium level and kidney failure. I read on, thinking of possible causes, then something caught my eye. Her breast exam had revealed multiple breast masses, and her chest x-ray showed fluid-filled lungs.

Everything fell into place: cancer, first in the breast and then spreading to the lungs. I was spared a diagnostic challenge, but I now had to face something more difficult–talking with Ms. Taylor about her diagnosis. Did she even know what it was? It didn’t

Pearls Before Swine

Kate Lewis May 28, 2010 No Comments

Kate Lewis

I’m a third-year medical student, and I’m starting the second day of my new rotation–a month that I’ll spend with a family physician, Dr. Bauer, in his small, efficient home-based office.

Yesterday, my first day, a young woman named Sara came in for “strep throat.” She had dark Latina eyes, broad cheekbones and a delicate tattoo of the Chinese character for “dream” on her left wrist. She was 17 and seeking out a primary-care doctor for the first time in her life; I applauded her for taking responsibility for her own health care. Her tonsils were big and purple, covered in pus, but the rapid strep test was negative. She also reported a vaginal discharge. Dr. Bauer wanted to do a pelvic exam

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: medical training

One Hundred Wiser

A Medical School Professor Calls It A Day

Lost in the Numbers

Deja-vu

Affected

Broken

Dr. B Gets an F

Trauma in the ER

The Winner

Stuck

Ms. Taylor

Pearls Before Swine

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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: medical training

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