Tag: Dean Gianakos
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Lonely physician
Dean GianakosLynchburg, Virginia, United States Jack wakes up early Sunday morning to walk along the Carolina shore. The sand feels cool under his bare feet. He passes a fisherman preparing flies for his pole. He stops to watch the brilliant orange sun rise over the horizon. The blue green ocean is still. Gently kicking the…
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Wandering lonely as a cloud
Dean GianakosLynchburg, Virginia, US I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o’er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle on the milky way,They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin…
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Things to think
Dean GianakosLynchburg, Virginia, United States Think in ways you’ve never thought before.If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a messageLarger than anything you’ve ever heard,Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats. Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a mooseHas risen out of the…
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When I heard the learn’d epidemiologist
Dean GianakosLynchburg, Virginia, United States Sitting on the maroon recliner in my den, I am having trouble concentrating on the epidemiologist who is talking on the television. He points to a Covid hot zone on a color-coded map of the United States. The screen changes before I can locate Virginia. Were we brown, or yellow?…
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My mother and Proust
Dean GianakosLynchburg, Virginia, United States “Mom, one day I’m going to write a story about you. I’ve already picked out a title: “My Mother and Proust,” I laugh. I look at her face, hoping for a smile. Before my eighty-six-year-old mother developed Parkinson’s dementia a few years ago, she would have laughed with me. Instead,…
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Reading poems, saving lives
Dean GianakosVirginia, United States Men and women who tout the value of poetry like to refer to a stanza in William Carlos Williams’ famous love poem, “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower”, written in 1947: It is difficultTo get the news from poemsYet men die miserably every dayFor lackOf what is found there.1 If what the physician-poet…
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Last words
Dean GianakosVirginia, United States It’s after midnight, and I’m on the phone with the family medicine resident. “Dr. Gianakos? Sorry to wake you. I’m here in the emergency room with Hattie T. I know you know her from previous admissions. Another COPD exacerbation, Dr. G. I’ve given her antibiotics, steroids, and three neb treatments. She…
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Dr. Gianakos, I think he’s awake now
Dean GianakosVirginia, USA It’s 2 am, and I’m on the phone with my first-year resident, Sherry. “Dr. Gianakos, I have one of your patients here in the emergency room, Jack Jones. As you know, Mr. Jones is a 72-year-old man with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He came in tonight complaining of increasing shortness of…
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Five minutes to midnight
Dean GianakosVirginia, United States Five minutes early for his appointment, I met Dr. Ivan Minski at the weigh station. He was dressed in a sharp, blue suit and narrow tie. White hair graced his head, eyebrows, and even his ears, though his stooped shoulders prevented me from getting a good look at his face. Introducing…