A couple of weeks ago, my sister texted me that my 26-year-old nephew Justin was complaining that his chest hurt every time he breathed in. Justin is a healthy, athletic guy who played soccer throughout high school and volleyball in college. More recently, while living back home job hunting after finishing a master’s degree in business, his sporting activities have been of the online variety. As he did in all …
The hidden danger of prolonged gaming
“I just can’t. I can’t,” Wendy sobbed into my hair. We barely made it out the door when our bodies collapsed together, puddles holding puddles. The children, 5 and 7, had just left with their tiny grey backpacks, tiny soldiers off to the abyss. Pastel crayon drawings taped to every pale pink wall: “Mom! Get well soon!” But she wouldn’t. Rainbows and stick figures clung to the white paper on …
The comfort of colleagues: a story of love and loss in palliative care
Oh how I miss the feel of your thick spine, so wide I could barely grasp you with my oddly small hands. Wrist cocked, an awkward drag ensued from rack to desk, your heft landing with a thump under fluorescent lights on the laminate desk. I scooted into the low chair and dove in with aplomb. I was ready.
I started just beneath your mauve plastic cover. There, just under the …
Today, I propose a new kind of metric in medicine.
I know. I know. (I hear the uncomfortable clearing of your throats.)
On one side of the room: Of course we are human, are we not?
On the other: Here we go again, Doctor Touchy-Feely. Let’s get on with it. I’ve got work to do.
But what if …
We rewarded a “chief complaint,” written as a patient concern or a family observation, features fleshed …
A new kind of metric in medicine
“What does it mean to be neighbors in the trenches?” I began a recent staff meeting at our medical group.
We’d just read a passage about the Christmas Truce between the Germans and the British in World War I. The troops found themselves so close together they could smell each other’s food, hear each other’s music. It was impossible not to pause the violence in a moment filled with so much …
Is there such a thing as too much empathy?
You know who you are.
I’m writing to tell you no matter how wrenching our time was together, or messy, or scary, or short were the hours, I love you. I cherish you. And no matter how hard I tried, it was you who gave more. Because you let me in when I showed up unannounced in my pale blouse and loud heels.
You might have been curled up …
A love letter from your doctor
My gut churned, a burning rose into my chest as I read the email. It’s happening again repeated on a reel in my mind, followed by I need to leave this job. But I wasn’t quitting. I was triggered. It was years after I’d had the rug pulled out from under me at an institution where I’d spent decades working, but sometimes my nervous system sent me right back there.
I was a palliative …
A crushing blow in a workplace I loved
It was the morning after Thanksgiving, 2012. My parents and I were sharing a suite at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, where we were camped out after the holiday dinner. We were not here because it was a family tradition or even because we wanted to notch it up this year. My family loved our paper plate style event, the air thick with the scent of turkey baking …
A physician’s story: “Please come quickly. My brain is bleeding.”
“Black life remains unexpected.”
I have been mulling over these words written by Ibram X. Kendi, in The Atlantic. This followed his piece exploring the “anniversary” of slavery in 2019. He experiences this 400-year marker both with hope and concern given the persistence of a split America: “Black death matters to racist America. Black life matters to African America.” He writes, “there may be no more consequential white …
How race plays a role in palliative care
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