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Special Delivery

Deborah Pierce September 4, 2015 3 Comments

Deborah Pierce

I first met Marie five years ago. A petite, soft-spoken woman in her thirties, she was the patient of one of the residents whom I supervise at our community hospital. Marie worked in housekeeping for a large corporation; she and her husband, a bus driver, had a six-year-old son. Now she was twenty-six weeks (six months) pregnant with their second child.

Marie’s blood pressure was markedly elevated (168/120), she had fairly high amounts of protein in her urine, and her baby measured small on the ultrasound. These pointed to severe preeclampsia–a serious complication that can quickly worsen, leading to kidney damage, seizures or even death for mother and child, and that can only be cured by delivering the baby.

The

Wednesday’s Child

Cortney Davis May 1, 2015 19 Comments

Cortney Davis

It was a Wednesday in late spring, 1972. I was a nursing student in my final months of training, eagerly awaiting graduation.

When I arrived on the maternity ward that morning, my nursing instructor told me that I’d be caring for a baby, only hours old, with special needs.

I thought she’d send me to the neonatal ICU. Instead, to my surprise, she motioned toward the linen closet, its doors closed tight.

“The baby was born without a complete brain,” she said. “A condition called anencephaly. He can’t see or hear. And,” she added, “they don’t expect he’ll live out the day. So try not to get attached.”

Bonding Time

Nelly Schottel March 14, 2014 28 Comments

Nelly Schottel

As an intern in the neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU), I am one of several doctors who rarely see or touch the tiny patients we treat. We sit in a back room off a distant hallway, far removed from the babies, reviewing lab results and blood gases on the computer. Much of the time I feel like the Wizard of Oz, controlling a marvelous machine from behind a curtain.

The only uninterrupted time I have with my patients comes at 5:30 am, during pre-rounds, when I hurriedly examine my ten small, complex charges. This is the most rushed part of the day, but these are also the rare moments that I actually spend with a patient.

meningitis baby

Helen Buckingham November 8, 2013 2 Comments

Hurricane Sandy: Two Tales of One City: Part 2

Alice Teich November 9, 2012 No Comments

Not Your Usual Halloween

Alice Teich

Hey Manisha,

Last night–Halloween–I went and volunteered at a shelter in a school basement/gymnasium in the Nineties on the Upper West Side.

There were more than 100 folks staying there, mostly evacuated from the Lower East Side. The shelter, run by the City, had some volunteers at the front desk, a few security people, a medical team that consisted of myself, one other doctor and a nurse (volunteers through the NYC Medical Reserve Corps–if you’re a provider, you can sign up online; it only takes fifteen minutes), and more than twenty awesome volunteers of all ages.

It was a mess.

Quite a few folks staying there

ADHD

Patricia Ljutic August 10, 2012 No Comments

Patricia Ljutic

A flywheel
launched from a brain
that cannot remember
three consecutive words–
two words, maybe:

“Stop kicking…”

The third word catapults with
the what and the where,
changing channels
with every new activity,
leaving my son aimless,
scattering stones,
snapping twigs,
belching at turned heads,
spinning.

“S-T-O-P!”

What does stop mean with his
thoughts ajar?
ADHD: attention
without a footpath,
a train without a brake.
Ignoring directions,
my son’s frontal lobe sputters
–winds and unwinds–
toggling like a switch
that switches…that switches…that switches,
careens him into space.

Spinning.

About the poet:

Patricia Ljutic, a registered nurse, is director of the Home Health and Hospice Quality program at Vallejo Kaiser Permanente Foundation Hospital,

The Ancients Had It Right

Stanley H. Schuman December 31, 2010 No Comments

Stanley H. Schuman

In Aramaic scripture*, and Aboriginal Dreamtime.
How else could animal life begin
Except by Divine Breath, oxygen-enriched?
How ingenious! Only two atoms: O2,
Ideal for hemoglobin, mitochondria,
Neurotransmitters, ideal for fight or flight, for vocalizing,
For clever humans to shape tools, split atoms,
Compose opera, sow seeds, harvest grain.

Consider my distress, in my just-opened pediatric office.
Stumped by Angela, a three-year-old
So panicked by my white coat, no way to examine her.

Screaming, clutching Mother, she knew and I knew
This wasn’t university-hospital, with back-up nurses.
Instead, it was one-on-one,
Advantage Angela.

Desperate, I felt for a stray balloon in my
Pants pocket (from my own child’s birthday).
Putting it to my lips, I strained to inflate the stubborn thing.
Instantly,

Angels and Phantoms

Joanna Dognin August 13, 2010 No Comments

Joanna Dognin

“Mama,” a little voice pipes from the back seat. “Why is that boy in a chair?”

The sun is beaming into the car as we sit at a stoplight, waiting to exit a store parking lot. My two-year-old daughter has spotted a young man, barely twenty, who smiles weakly as he rolls by in an electric wheelchair, collecting money for muscular dystrophy.

“He’s in a chair because he needs help moving around,” I say.

“Why?”

“Because his legs need help.”

“Why? Because they don’t work?”

“Well…”

“Why are they broken?” she asks. “Is he broken? Why is he here? Where is his mama? Mama, where is the boy’s mama?”

* * * * *

“Dr. Lobozzo, you got any

The Cruelest Month

Ray Bingham July 23, 2010 No Comments

Ray Bingham

One day in April, I took the assignment none of the other nurses wanted: Baby Michael. A hopeless case.

Born almost four months premature, weighing barely a pound, he was now all of six days old. His entire body wasn’t much longer than my open hand. As he lay motionless on a warming bed with the ventilator breathing for him, the night nurse gave me report: serious intestinal infection, bowel surgery, septic shock, multiple antibiotics, infusions to support his failing heart, transfusions to replace the serous drainage seeping from the surgical incision on his darkened, swollen belly.

“Take good care of him,” she finished. “He’s been through so much already.”

As experienced nurses, we both knew that a premature infant rarely survives so

In the Pediatric Ward

Tess Galati March 12, 2010 No Comments

In this forest of tubes and bottles,
Children wander in sleep.
A dying bird drops
From the corner of my eye.
The night nurse floats through paths
Tending the rooted tubes,
Weighing the pause between breaths.
In the dark, a man’s voice
Stuns like a hunter’s gun.
We wait for dawn.

Last night we cried–four worn children
Facing their walls, and I,
Handing out animal crackers.
Willow’s bones are flaking
John’s eye refuses light
Paige’s ears close up and
Something is eating the soft parts of
Adam’s knee.
We know these things and we cry.

The children force the beds to do acrobatic tricks.
They’ve

Cleft

Jon Neher November 27, 2009 No Comments

As Caroline was born

the doctor saw
the split
from lip to nose–
purple rimmed,
going down deep–
Deep enough
to hurt
generations.

And the imperfect doctor,
tired of wounds
tired of divisions,
saw the small
wholeness
Chose that moment
Chose tenderness
saying simply,
She is beautiful.

And the imperfect mother,
tired of pain,
held her child,
touched the tiny,
ragged face
Chose that moment
Chose acceptance
crying softly,
She is beautiful.

About the poet:

Jon Neher is clinical professor of family medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle and associate director of the Valley Medical

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: pediatrics

Special Delivery

Wednesday’s Child

Bonding Time

meningitis baby

Hurricane Sandy: Two Tales of One City: Part 2

ADHD

The Ancients Had It Right

The Cruelest Month

In the Pediatric Ward

Cleft

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fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: pediatrics

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