medical training – Page 7

May I Have Your Attention, Please?

Adam Phillip Stern January 15, 2010 No Comments

Adam Phillip Stern

Some sentences should never be interrupted.

“We have the results of your HIV test,” the attending physician had begun. But fate interrupted with a seemingly endless loudspeaker announcement:

“May I have your attention, please? Would the following patients please report to the nurse’s station for morning medications….”

Nothing about Benjamin’s story was ordinary. He had been voluntarily admitted to an inpatient psychiatry unit after reporting many symptoms of

Help Me

Jennifer Reckrey November 13, 2009 No Comments

Jennifer Reckrey

Editor’s Note: Jennifer Reckrey kept a weekly journal of her experiences during her intern year.

Week 13

I had a few free minutes at the end of my clinic session this past Thursday morning, so I took over a walk-in patient from an overbooked colleague.

The patient was a large, muscular Salvadoran man in his early forties who had long-standing hypertension. He said that for the

First Cadaver

Shanna Germain September 25, 2009 No Comments

He presses the Sawzall to

her chest, slices skin to bone.
This unzipping of skin does
not stop our breaths–we’re used to

invasion of the body,
the way his fingers pinch
into her pockets as though
for a cloth or a quarter.

Grasping bone ends, he spreads
her pinkish ribs, not breaking
a sweat, to find what he’s come
for: such a

The Emaciated Infant

Paula Lyons September 11, 2009 No Comments

Paula Lyons

The police had been called to the house by a neighbor who said she heard children crying and hadn’t seen the mother in two days. It was the middle of a night in July, and the children’s wails would have traveled through the project windows left open to catch cooling breezes.

Paramedics provided transport to the hospital, but the normally cynical and well-defended police were so outraged that they also came to

Looking for Respect

Ashrei Bayewitz August 21, 2009 No Comments

Ashrei Bayewitz

This may sound strange, but I secretly looked forward to my colonoscopy.

I was excited to see the people in the colonoscopy suite–the receptionists, the nurses and my doctor. I knew that they would like me, because I would be brave and respectful. That’s what’s always happened since I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease ten years ago. During my multiple colonoscopies and countless doctor visits and other outpatient procedures, I invariably build up

Tug-of-War

Jo Marie Reilly August 7, 2009 53 Comments

Jo Marie Reilly

As I teach first- and second-year medical students to take patient histories and to perform physical examinations, I always feel humbled and privileged–energized by their compassion, enthusiasm and facile, curious minds.

Occasionally, I feel particularly challenged–especially when I’m teaching a student who, though bright, is struggling to acquire some of medicine’s basic skills. As we journey up the learning curve together, my responsibilities can conflict: as a teacher, I want to

The Save

Dan J. Schmidt July 10, 2009 No Comments

Dan J. Schmidt

I started medical school thinking I wanted to be a family doctor–someone who could work in a small town and deal with whatever walked through the door. But in our third year, when we received our first taste of clinical medicine, I found my surgery and ER rotations exciting. I was at our state’s major trauma center, and I loved it. Fixing things gives me a thrill–and the power to save a

Each Day, Same Story

Jennifer Reckrey May 8, 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, she recorded some of her experiences as a brand-new doctor.

I have been his primary doctor for the entire three weeks he has been on the hospital floor. Sometimes he drives me crazy. Once or twice I’ve asked my senior resident to take over for a bit so I can hide out, catch

Breaking Bad News

Paul Gross April 24, 2009 No Comments

Paul Gross

Bad news is like a lump of red-hot coal that lands in your palm–and that you can’t let go of, no matter how badly you’d like to.

I was tossed the burning coal over twenty years ago, when I was thirty years old and fit as a fiddle. Or so I thought. I also happened to be a first-year medical student, having my head filled with facts large and small about the human

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

May I Have Your Attention, Please?

First Cadaver

Looking for Respect

Tug-of-War

The Save

Each Day, Same Story

Breaking Bad News

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

Start typing and press enter to search