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A TAB No More

Sandra Shea July 26, 2013 No Comments

Sandra Shea

I thought of Peter when I lost my TAB status.

I lost it on vacation. These things happen. Suddenly, one Friday night in Florida, I was no longer a TAB. Shouldn’t have been too surprised, I guess.

But I didn’t expect it would involve a chicken.

I should explain.

I’m a medical educator: I have a PhD in experimental psychology/neuroscience, and I teach first-year medical students. In our curriculum, the students work through patient cases that are grouped by organ system. At the end of each case, we have a wrap-up in which we highlight the case’s diagnostic features and answer any student questions. Most of these discussions are faculty-led, but occasionally they’re run by

The Pronouncement

Carl V. Tyler June 14, 2013 No Comments

Carl V. Tyler

I knew from last night’s house call that my patient Bessie’s time was near. All day long I’d felt the familiar churning inside, the sickly sweet combination of anticipated dread and anticipated relief. So when the phone rang while I was exercising at home, I wasn’t surprised. I quickly dropped the barbell weights to answer the call before it went to voice mail.

It was Bessie’s daughter, Susan.

On the Road

Josephine Ensign May 17, 2013 No Comments

Josephine Ensign

As a community health nurse, I work with homeless and street-involved teenagers. In almost thirty years of doing this work on both coasts, and in Thailand and Venezuela, I’ve gotten to know thousands of young people living on the margins of society.

I love working with them; they challenge me to see the world–and myself–in a broader way, one that opens up vistas of hope for positive change and a better future.

And I always find myself touched by their hopefulness and vulnerability. Their level of optimism varies depending on many factors: their socioeconomic background and level of education, their intelligence and social skills, their involvement with foster care, and factors such as the general level of chaos they experienced growing up, and

Stardust

Audrey Cortez March 1, 2013 No Comments

Audrey Cortez

Years ago I worked as a registered nurse in a busy surgical pre-admission clinic, preparing patients who’d been scheduled for surgery for the upcoming operation and hospital experience.

My workdays were packed with back-to-back, hour-long appointments. Whatever surgery the patient was facing–oral, orthopedic or anything else–every interview followed the same format. I would greet the patient, who’d often bring along a family member, and quickly escort them both into my small office, seating them in the stiff, outdated plastic chairs facing my desk. On the way, trying to save time, I would explain that as part of the pre-admission process I’d need to do a health interview and a physical assessment, get an accurate list of the patient’s medications, labs, X-rays,

Florence

Ben White February 1, 2013 No Comments

Ben White

When I first met Florence in the ER, she’d already been dying for some time.

I was a third-year medical student doing my internal-medicine clerkship. Florence was a soft-spoken, tired woman in her sixties. To her, I was yet another face asking all the same questions, but she didn’t mind telling her story again–although she did stop in the middle to tell me, “You have beautiful eyes.” I paused to smile, then continued taking my history.

Florence was very overweight, diabetic, a mother to children who were somewhere far away, and a wife to a quiet, slender man with bags under his eyes. She and her husband

Note to My Patient

Sarah Stumbar January 11, 2013 No Comments

You might be surprised to know that I’m lying here in bed still thinking of you two weeks after you’ve died.

During the month that I watched you die, I often wondered what it felt like to be you, with your deep, husky voice, rounded belly and stubborn anger. You’d once owned your own mechanic shop; now you were sitting here in a hospital bed, staring up at the medical team as we whirled in and out of your room. Staring up at me as I drew blood from your central line each morning.

Beyond Reason

Kathy Speas September 7, 2012 No Comments

Kathy Speas

Visiting the dementia unit of a nursing home is never easy.

First off, you have to find your patient amid the assemblage of people–mostly women–seated in wheelchairs, recliners, wingbacks, sofas and assorted walkers, or wandering around.

Then, you must make yourself known to the person you’ve found. Here’s where the harder questions arise: How can I introduce myself and convey my role–a hospice chaplain–to someone who has outlasted language? Is my state of mind so calm and engaged that my very being will exude peace and generate trust? Am I totally present, or is my mind bouncing back and forth between tomorrow and yesterday? And just what does it mean, as a hospice chaplain, to provide spiritual support to someone at the end

The Silent Treatment

Frances Smalkowski March 2, 2012 1 Comment

Frances Smalkowski

Last year, while enjoying a two-week tour of the cultural capitals of China, I was amazed by how at home I felt. Searching my memory for the reasons behind this unexpected state of mind, I suddenly remembered Mr. Loy.

We met more than forty years ago. I was in my third year as a nursing student, doing a semester-long rotation in a large psychiatric hospital. Each student was assigned a patient for the semester, and Mr. Loy was mine.

We were expected to forge a therapeutic relationship with our patients. This was a tall order; most of our patients were diagnosed with some form of persistent schizophrenia, and few spoke in any coherent fashion, if they spoke at all.

Mr. Loy was no

Stigmata

Kevin Koo October 14, 2011 No Comments

I started my third year of medical school as a surgery clerk.

With this eight-week clerkship came a flood of conflicting advice from older, wiser peers: “Ask a lot of questions, but speak only when spoken to.” “Offer to help, but stay out of the way.” “Be friendly and likeable, but not too friendly–or too likeable.” For the medical student, such is the mystique of the OR.

Three weeks into my general surgery rotation, I was helping my senior resident to see patients in the clinic and evaluate them for surgery. She grabbed the first chart off the day’s pile, knocked on the exam-room door and turned the handle, glancing at the chart before saying, “Hello, Mister–”

“Tran,” the patient finished.

Conundrum

Matthew Hirschtritt July 22, 2011 No Comments

Matthew Hirschtritt

Walking from an exam room to the nurse’s station in the small outpatient clinic where I worked as a second-year medical student, I paused by a window to gaze out at the winter sunset. After a moment, I looked down to scan the notebook where I kept my schedule and notes for my last patient of the day.

4:15, Ms. Smith, 26, lump on groin–the bare bones of a story waiting to be filled in.

Feeling tired and looking forward to dinner, I sighed dramatically, dropped into a chair in front of a computer console and called up Ms. Smith’s electronic health record.

Like most medical records,

Recovery Room

Warren Holleman April 1, 2011 No Comments

Warren Holleman

We’re sitting in a circle: seven women and me. Most are in their thirties and forties, and in their second, third or fourth month of sobriety. They look professional in the suits they’ve assembled from the donations closet of our inner-city recovery center.

I start things off by reminding everyone that this is the last day of the group. The last hour, in fact.

All eyes turn to Dorothy.

Dorothy is a proud woman, tall and tough and strong. And a former track and field star, although now she’s wheelchair-bound.

She speaks in a deep, husky, monotone punctuated occasionally by dramatic earthquakes–otherwise known as spastic tremors. But in all this time, she’s avoided talking about herself, fueling the suspicion that she’s hiding something

Things That Matter

Paul Gross December 24, 2010 No Comments

Paul Gross

For me, the best part of being a doctor, and the biggest privilege, is getting to talk with people about things that matter.

“You look sad today,” I say to a patient I’m seeing for the first time–a thirty-eight-year-old woman with a headache. In response, her lower lip starts to tremble, and she wipes an eye.

As I reach for the box of tissues and hand it to her, I know that whatever has caused her tears will be more important than her presenting symptom.

A forty-five-year-old man comes in wanting help sustaining erections. When I ask for a few details, it turns out he’s having sex every single day of the week, and he’s finding it a challenge to maintain an erection

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: memorable patients

A TAB No More

The Pronouncement

On the Road

Stardust

Florence

Note to My Patient

Beyond Reason

The Silent Treatment

Stigmata

Conundrum

Recovery Room

Things That Matter

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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: memorable patients

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