Martin Kohn (for Helen) This openness into This brightness onto This bodied and dis-embodied sunken-eyed knowing This close and blinking moment This shutter stop goodbye Your round soft shoulder pillowed beneath a feeble hug The Lord “not quite ready” to take you even though you and Trixie your cat had walked the dark path to him again
Jeremiah Horrigan No one goes to a hospital to heal. They go because they must–as I did three years ago, when a one-hour colonoscopy turned into a four-day surgical sleepover. My grandfather had warned me long ago against hospitals. “You don’t want to go there,” he said. “That’s where the sick people are.” Pop died at the age of ninety-four, at home. His warning came strongly to mind as I walked into the place that I’ve come to call HospitalWorld. Silently, I replied: Hospitals are where the sick people are, all right. They’re also where the doctor people are. I have no choice. I was fifty-nine years old, and, after years of foot-dragging, this would be my first colonoscopy.
Majid Khan I always look forward to meeting new patients–and I confess that I have a particular fondness for young patients. They are, you see, at the point in their lives where everything is possible. It’s possible to have fun when other people might feel upset, possible to enjoy oneself on Friday night after a hard week of work (or study) rather than complaining about being too tired. I love sharing in their dreams, their joys, their fun and their excitement. My first patient this morning is 30-year-old Kieran. We’ve never met; I wonder what she’s been up to, and if she’s planning any adventures. I’m looking forward to chatting, to exploring the “biopsychosocial” aspect of her medical complaint, as I keep urging my own
Jennifer Reckrey Editor’s note: Jennifer Reckrey is a family medicine resident in New York City. Each week while she was an intern, Dr. Reckrey recorded some of her experiences as a brand-new doctor. Today’s stories are from weeks number nine and twenty-five. Week Nine I dreaded my rotation in the Intensive Care Unit. Though all the tools to keep a body alive are right there, their continuous bells and beeps jangle my nerves. I’m always afraid that in this place I will be called on to act decisively and invasively. And my mind will go blank. I will hesitate, and that hesitation will make an already awful situation worse. But even more than that, I dreaded this rotation because I think of the ICU as
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