Category: Vignettes at Large
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Discrimination: From Blues to Amazing Grace to sleeves
Lauren E. HillWalnut Cove, North Carolina, United StatesJack E. RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States “Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.” – Bertrand Russell, from “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish” “Now I know you’re a Blue, but these old eyes don’t…
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Modern day obstinacy: the persistence of pangalintaw
Halima AbdulmaguidNorth Cotabato, Philippines In the first week of June, my mother was rushed to the hospital because her cough was getting worse and her shoulder pain no longer bearable. On her x-ray film we saw that half of her lungs were not visible; there was fluid inside causing the obscurity, and there was also…
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My health care crisis
Yessenia GutiérrezMiami, Florida, United States “Mom, will it hurt?” These were the first words that came out of my mouth the day after my kidneys stopped working. The day after I found out that I had kidney failure and had to get a fistula in my arm for dialysis. I was very afraid because I…
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A Martian treatment for dehydration
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden I was “rotating” through the pediatric service in an American general hospital. As a sixth-year student of a European medical school, I had been allowed to return home for my year of clinical duties before graduation. One day, during pediatric rounds, a resident presented an infant who had been admitted because of…
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The curative value of pork
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.— Voltaire My mother told me the story that when I was a few months old I developed some sort of respiratory illness. The problem distressed my parents so much that they called the family doctor to our apartment.…
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A circle of hip surgery around four continents
Peter ArnoldSydney, Australia My story begins in Sydney in late January 1980. A businessman in his mid-fifties (Mr. C.) had been on his way to source products in the UK. As his student son was traveling in Italy, he decided to visit him by stopping over in Rome on his way north. When the young…
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The sweet smell of success
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “You shall nose him . . .”— Hamlet, Act IV, scene III It was July 1977. After having done a rotating internship, I was starting my pediatric residency at the academic children’s hospital. My first rotation was in the outpatient clinic, an old, run-down building a few blocks from the main hospital.…