Tag: patients
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Brief encounters
Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece Doctor-patient relationships are as unique as the potential pairs of doctors and patients. At one end of the spectrum there is the one-time encounter, usually for some straightforward and self-limiting problem: the doctor may never see the patient again. At the other extreme, a lifelong bondage of chronic conditions may bring the…
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How we love
Linda ClarkeGuelph, Ontario, Canada The communities of health care and medicine are richly storied. For almost three decades, I have invited people in those communities to tell me their stories and they have been generous in their telling. A story told can be image-laden and many of those images become part of my own story.…
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What’s hormones got to do with it? The medicalization of menopause in postwar America
Pavane GorrepatiIowa City, Iowa, United States Introduction From menstruation to menopause, there appears to be a deliberate and constant medicalization of the stages of a woman’s life. Menopause, a biological process every woman experiences, has been cast in a negative light, a time to be wary rather than to be celebrated. This has led the…
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Burnout
Ronald RembertChicago, Illinois, United States I was assigned to work at Cook County Hospital for my emergency room (ER) clerkship in my third year of medical school. “Whoa, that place is crazy . . . you will see a lot a people there,” I was told by a friend who worked there. Actually, I was…
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Dialogues of comfort
Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece My patient is a veteran physician, quite advanced in years but mentally lucid and fully aware of his condition. His disease is incurable, and he is in need of a chest aspiration for symptomatic relief of his breathlessness. He is also impatient. “How much fluid have you drawn?” he asks gruffly every…
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Flyfishing and medicine
James StollerCleveland, Ohio, United States I am one of the many doctors who relish the zen of flyfishing. Standing in a stream, reading the clues for what type of fly to cast and where to cast it, and focusing incessantly on a dry fly drifting lithely to entice a hungry trout, flyfishing invites self-reflection through…
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Shadowing Artists on the Wards: an undergraduate, arts-based medical elective
Pamela Brett-MacLeanMichelle CasavantShirley ServissAlyssa CruzEdmonton, Canada Medicine is frequently described as both an art and science, with science focused on objective, technical knowledge (competency, or cure) and the artistic elements focused on the human side of medicine (empathy, or care). Herman (2001), among others, has suggested artistic and scientific activity converge, suggesting that “when an…
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When the doctor is the patient
Saleh AldasouqiEast Lansing, Michigan, United States I looked at my fingers, tender after a few glucose finger sticks to the middle and ring fingers of both hands, wondering which fingers to use the next day. No matter how user-friendly blood glucose testing devices have become, finger pricking remains a painful experience that patients with diabetes…
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First blood
John Graham-PoleAntigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London, 1970: I’m astounded I’ve landed one of the coveted G.O.S. senior resident jobs. The academic nature of the place immediately daunts me. Everyone bows down to its status as the foremost pediatric research hospital in Europe, perhaps in the world, the faculty…
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Defined spaces
Heather AlvaPalo Alto, California, United States “We’re already seeing signs of damage in the retina, but honestly, don’t worry about retinopathy; there have been so many recent medical advancements that I’m sure they’ll find a cure for diabetes in the next ten years.” You smile and nod. You don’t tell the optometrist that a doctor,…