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

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Finding Worthiness in Being Different

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The first time I was asked this question, it didn’t occur to me that my answer might not be matched by a corresponding opportunity. In the years since, I’ve learned that the question should have been “What will you be allowed to be?”

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“Doctor Sahib, Mamnoon!”

Growing up in Pakistan, I aspired to be a doctor. I was fascinated by movies and TV shows centered on the medical profession and the day-to-day work and lives of physicians. To me, they were superheroes, wearing white coats instead of capes.

A familiar figure in the panoply was the stereotypically brilliant and successful physician/surgeon. (Remember Dr. Melendez in The Good Doctor?) Insanely smart and talented, he was also hard-edged, competitive and almost robotic in his laser-sharp focus on reaching diagnoses and treating symptoms.

Observing similar traits among my mentors while in medical school and during my internship, I concluded that while perfect politeness is the norm, feeling or displaying emotion must be atypical.

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September Third Year

Today a patient died. Jake was forty years old. When he came into the emergency room, Jake was dying of sepsis. I gave him some pain medication, and he just slipped away. I did try to save him. As his blood pressure dropped, I ran fluids and antibiotics. I put his head down to keep blood flowing to his brain. I ordered labs and an X-ray and an EKG.

I had taken care of Jake several times during his previous hospitalizations. He was sweet, but tired. He was blind from diabetes, and his irises were gray-white. I think he shut his eyes as he died, but I can’t quite remember.

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A Different Shade of Black

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

Ask any medical student what makes them unique among their peers, and you’ll almost certainly be treated to a two-minute answer that’s been rehearsed in countless mock interviews and essays as part of their preparations for residency applications.

It’s ingrained in the collective medical-student brain that to be recognized, we must stand out–constantly looking for opportunities to demonstrate our unparalleled competence.

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Don, 1979

It’s 3:00 am. Deep in the bowels of the hospital, bright fluorescent lights softly buzz overhead in the windowless snack bar, where a row of vending machines give off a low hum.

Don, my sixteen-year-old patient, and I sit huddled in orange plastic chairs at a tiny Formica table. He is ranting, and I am listening. Neither of us can sleep. Don is awake because he is mad at the world, and I’m awake because I’m the pediatric resident on call.

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My Homage to Palliative Care

As a medical resident, I found there was something about working on the hospice unit that gave me the urge to wander, to slow down; to put away my stethoscope and truly connect with those around me.

Perhaps it was the peaceful, almost hypnotic melodies of the in-house pianist lulling me in a trance-like state, awakening my curiosity. Her music floated sweetly through the halls, following my path as I drifted, lost in reflection. Perhaps it was the towering windows looking out on the lush garden; on many afternoons, I’d gaze through their panes, watching the soothing winter downpour. It was my own personal sanctuary amid the pervasive atmosphere of grief and loss that hung over all.

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The VIP

It was late at night, and as the neurosurgery resident on call, I was alone in the hospital, wishing that I could lie down, or even just slow down, in the midst of a busy shift.

I sat for a moment, awaiting the inevitable next phone call or text. Predictably, my phone rang within minutes. It was the trauma-team resident.

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Teachings

“It’s not like what they taught you.”

It is the winter of 2013. I am a second-year family-medicine resident, with big ideas and small experience. Brian is a staff physician, maybe three or four years into practice—years that might as well be decades. The two of us huddle in one corner of the little airport departure lounge in Sioux Lookout, Ontario.

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A Weird Fit for Medicine

Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

Whenever the most recent piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation passes, the silence is a familiar song.

In November of 2022, we had the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs—soon to be followed by a nonstop onslaught of legislative attacks on the LGBTQ communities’ right to exist. After each one, the silence blared.

I remember walking into work the day after the Club Q shooting. As I met my co-residents for 6:00 am patient sign-out, I felt weighed down, needing to will myself to focus. I was greeted with the usual smiles, heard the usual laughter, listened to the usual small talk.

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What Little Separates Us

Among the handful of patients who visited the emergency department one night in June with abdominal pain, rashes or fevers, I especially remember Michelle. She was a woman in her late twenties, eight weeks pregnant with her second child. I was a second-year resident, and she had come for help with something I’d already encountered over a dozen times in my training.

“I think I might be having a miscarriage,” she said. She stopped herself, then looked at me as if to gauge my reaction.

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Gift of Gratitude

We all remember our patients who die, though the first patient death really stands out from the rest. This was certainly true for me.

I was just starting the second year of my internal-medicine residency. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen someone die, but it was the first time I’d seen someone who’d been alive and well, and talking to me that morning, be dead by the afternoon–a shocking dichotomy that haunts me to this day.

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Treating a Messiah

It was my very first day of psychiatry rotation in my family-medicine residency at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston.

This rotation took place at the old Ben Taub Hospital with its unmistakable odor–a combination of drugs, detergents, illness and death. Even if I were taken there blindfolded, one sniff would tell me that I was at Ben Taub.

At any rate, having survived my first seven months of residency, I was feeling a little more confident in my abilities.

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