Local Doc on the Block
I could hear the cussing from inside the room and noted the awkward glances of nearby nurses and staff who turned to look and gawk. Even though I only sat a few feet outside the door, I ignored the increasingly loud litany of expletives and deliberately focused on the screen in front of me. He was my...
In medical school we glossed over Freud because psychoanalysis had largely become outdated. Popular culture has turned his method into a mockery; we chuckle to think of the bearded psychiatrist listening intently to some dude reclining on a sofa talking at length about the hidden sexual meaning underlying his bedwetting dreams. In the new era of...
It has been about a year since we moved out of the “inner city.” It’s an experience we are still processing with many mixed feelings, among them relief, disappointment, and shame. It is a relief to be able to walk around the block without fear of hearing gunshots, to sleep at night with...
My wife reminded me that it has now been one year since we were last broken into. She was partly reminded of this because our car was broken into last week, an incident in which only a cheap phone charger and several quarters were taken. This occurred despite having moved to a “nicer” area...
[This is an advance post in a series from the ESN blog. You can find the first part here or here.] In the first post of this series, I was ruminating about a patient who had a rapid decline in health and social circumstances, culminating in a recent scan that showed the...
I stopped and put my fork down on the plate. There was still food on it, but an emotional force had interrupted my appetite. My wife and I had been sitting at the dining table, chatting idly about preparations for our child, now nearly 34 weeks old and still in the womb. 34...
We stared at the piece of plastic and sank into the futon. Positive. We were sure of it even as our minds struggled to grasp the enormity and totality of its meaning. Positive. Were we ready for this, for anything? Positive. We were going to be parents.
“Hey, Bubbles has a gift for you. He’s been looking for you, since you saved his life,” my neighbor said casually. I was somewhat surprised; Bubbles (not his real street name) was a young man whom I met while administering first aid for an injury sustained on my block. Bubbles had a critical...
