Tag: oncologist
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Dream on
Paul RousseauCharleston, South Carolina, United States ChartThis is a 32-year-old female with widely metastatic breast cancer admitted to the hospital for control of shortness of breath and pain. ____ Melissa sits slumped, mouth open, snoring. I pull a chair bedside and gently touch her shoulder. Her head jerks, startled. She wipes drool from her chin…
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Tashima syndrome
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Let us now praise famous men.”— Ecclesiasticus 44:1 It has been a tradition in medicine to name a disease, a syndrome, a new treatment, or a surgical instrument after the person who describes it in the medical literature or invents it. Thus, we have Alzheimer’s disease, von Recklinghausen disease, Fanconi syndrome, Cornelia…
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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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Parental grief
Ellen ZhangBoston, Massachusetts, United States We didn’t know the ending because this was usback then. Sometimes wanting is not enough.When the oncologist spoke. While you startedto cry only because your mother did. As we cradledyou gently. Beyond the singularity of such moments. There is a universal grieving for parents losing a child.All things lead to…
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No complaints, only symptoms
Peter Arnold Sydney, Australia “No complaints, only symptoms,” I told my cardiologist this year. How dare I complain? I am eighty-four. Thirty-two years have passed since my quintuple coronary artery bypass; eighteen years since a diagnosis, in one of eleven biopsy samples, of invasive prostate cancer—left untreated, because so few of us die from it; five…
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The oncologist’s mask
Prasad IyerTimah Road, Singapore As a pediatric oncologist I have learned to put on an invisible mask before seeing my patients and their parents. I try to bring them some cheer and keep the enveloping darkness at bay, if only for a moment. The mask is also a shield to protect myself, lest my face…
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Poppy power
John Graham-PoleGainesville, Florida, United States The poppy’s juice . . .brings the sleep to dear Mama— Sara Coleridge, Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree— Samuel Coleridge, Kubla Khan, penned on waking from an opium-induced dream Of all God’s floral bounty, only papaver somnifera drips its beads…
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On being a spousal caregiver
William BlackKnoxville, Tennessee, United States When I was 55 years old, and had been in the private practice of Internal Medicine and Nephrology for 22 years, my wife Barbara was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the time of her diagnosis she already had widespread bony metastases. Five weeks later, I came home one evening to…
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The god that I know
Rae BrownLexington, Kentucky, USA When we start down the road toward medical school and residency, the idealists among us have a picture of the kind of physicians they will become. Our perception of the future rarely coincides with the reality that we often face. Ideally, principles that conflict with our own view of the world…
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Time
Paul RousseauCharleston, South Carolina, United States Selfishly, time is either too short or too long, the moment never appreciated. Mrs. Jones was a 69-year-old female with widely metastatic ovarian cancer, diagnosed during an emergency room visit for abdominal pain. After consultation with an oncologist, she elected to forgo chemotherapy and was referred for palliative care.…