Tag: Winter 2011
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An evolving journey: Writing as healing art
Amy WebbPawleys Island, South Carolina, United States It started simply enough. Soon after my diagnosis, a friend and fellow breast cancer survivor counseled me about protecting a space for healing. We discussed the need to create that delicate balance of keeping a network of friends and family informed along the way, while giving oneself the…
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Portrait of nursing
Lynda SlimmerChicago, Illinois, United States Using your mind’s eye, imagine a painting that my husband and I bought several years ago in the Smokey Mountains. An old-fashioned, wooden, crank-type ice cream maker rests in the foreground surrounded by heaps of fresh red strawberries and lava-like streams of thick, pink, strawberry ice cream frothing out of…
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Rice and reason
Wendy J. GuPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Rice, noodles, breads, buns, and pancakes all appear in traditional Chinese cuisine, but white rice is the ultimate staple. It can be found at all meals, from breakfast to dinner to dessert, in various guises and preparations, but it is overwhelmingly consumed in its simplest state—steamed. In Chinese cuisine, the…
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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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Blind date
Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece “And who has sent you to me?” Working as a private consulting pulmonologist in a healthcare system where referral letters are virtually nonexistent, I always ask new patients to tell me who sent them—a social engagement routine before we get into purely medical matters. It works as an informal survey of the…
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A good bedside manner
Richard HolmSioux Falls, South Dakota, United States The following essay was presented as part of the South Dakota Public Broadcasting Television show On Call on July 22, 2010. In 1988 Arnold P. Gold MD, a physician educator at Columbia University, noted a disturbing trend for medical students and residents. Students were over-emphasizing advancing technology while…
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A fortunate man
Martin DukeMystic, Connecticut, United States Earlier in the week the last patients were seen, their records given to them or sent to their new physicians, and the final farewells were said. The movers have left, and the office is now empty except for an old cast-iron medicine cabinet, a pencil sharpener attached to the wall,…
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Research subject
Eric CohenMilwaukee, Wisconsin, United States Much has been written about clinical research and its societal benefit.1 But research can also confer unexpected individual benefits, as shown by the story of Mrs. G, the recipient of a kidney transplant. She had been feeling ill for several days, short of breath and coughing. So, her husband brought…