Becoming a doctor in Chicago (c.1954)—The Chicago Maternity Center
Peter H. Berczeller Edited by Paul Berczeller An excerpt from Dr. Peter Berczeller’s memoir, The Little White Coat. Image by Stephanie Pratt from Pixabay My group and I were assigned to the Chicago Maternity Center at the end of the obstetrics in November 1955. Despite the recent training at Michael Reese, nothing could have prepared me for […]
Becoming a doctor in Chicago (c.1954)—Clerkships at Michael Reese Hospital
Peter H. Berczeller Edited by Paul Berczeller An excerpt from Dr. Peter Berczeller’s memoir, The Little White Coat. Michael Reese Hospital. Postcard by Curt Teich. 1950. No known copyright for Curt Teich postcards printed before 1964. After Cook County, my group and I moved over to Michael Reese Hospital—a pile of old buildings on the […]
Becoming a doctor in Chicago (c.1954)—Clerkship at Cook County Hospital
Peter H. Berczeller Edited by Paul Berczeller An excerpt from Dr. Peter Berczeller’s memoir, The Little White Coat. Post Mortem Examination by Prof. Ludvig Hektoen at the Cook County Morgue Chicago Ill. March 3rd 1897. Photographer unknown. Ward 64, the only female medical ward at Cook County Hospital, was to be the home base for […]
Becoming a doctor in Chicago (c.1954)—The Chicago Medical School
Peter H. Berczeller Edited by Paul Berczeller An excerpt from Dr. Peter Berczeller’s memoir, The Little White Coat. Compound monocular microscope. Graduated grey background. Credit: Science Museum, London. CC BY Chicago Med was the poor relation among the medical schools ringing Cook County Hospital. The sooty three-story building was dwarfed by the high rises of […]
From here
Rasa Rafie Colorado, United States Copies after Illustrations of Statues and Paintings (recto); Measurements for a Man’s Skeleton (verso). After Gerard de Lairesse. N.d. The Art Institute of Chicago. Public Domain. In college, we were the top of our class, the winners of scholarships and awards, the leaders of campus organizations. We were the […]
Wounding words
Charlotte Grinberg Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA Still Life – A Student’s Table. William Michael Harnett. 1882. Philadelphia Museum of Art. In college, I majored in anthropology. I was interested in understanding the political, social, legal, and economic forces that influence behavior. As language is inherently related to consciousness and culture, its study was central to […]
Simulation-based education and training: the reproduction of expert knowledge from military to healthcare applications
Marco Luchetti Milano, Italy Photo by Marco Luchetti Introduction Simulation can be defined as a technique or method to artificially reproduce the conditions of a phenomenon.1 Simulation-based training and education are designed to teach individuals the basic elements of a system by observing the results of actions or decisions through a feedback process generated […]
A house call
Martin Duke Mystic, Connecticut, USA A doctor visiting a sick woman, and taking her pulse. Many years ago, in the mid 1980s, when I was still in clinical practice, I made a house call accompanied by a second year medical student who was coming to my office one day a week as part of […]
A Dickensian medical education
Gregory Rutecki Lyndhurst, Ohio, United States Illustration for Nicholas Nickleby by Hablot Browne. 1839. My four grandparents were Polish immigrants who came to America in the early twentieth century. They had no formal education, neither in Poland nor in their new home in Chicago, but worked hard and saved money to pay for the […]
A quiet night
Henry Bair Palo Alto, CA University College Hospital, London: the outpatients’ waiting room and dispensary. Wood engraving, 1872. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY It was the end of the week, the middle of the night, and the beginning of my ER shift. All was quiet, and I was studying at the nurses’ station, still […]