Category: TMSC
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Leave It There
[I originally wrote this as a medical student working in the ICU. It’s one of my most haunting memories and comes to mind every time I work in the intensive care unit.] “I thought I could beat the ICU, you know?” My resident looked into the distance abstractly as he spoke, talking to himself more…
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Hands and Feet
[This was originally written years ago for a Christian campus publication, Revisions. It is one of my favorite reflections and will appear on the ESN blog tomorrow.] The patient came in for a refill of pain medications even though it was his first visit to the family medicine practice. The front desk staff had a letter…
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Roasting Pan
In the middle of Target is not the sort of place I would expect to receive bad news. The extra twenty dollars I saved by finding my coveted piece of cookware there instead of at Macy’s thirty minutes ago seemed somewhat trite by comparison, and I did what I could to smile and talk about…
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Rituals of Annotation
I am not exactly sure of what prompted me to do it, but I began keeping a tally of all the pronouncements I have done. I never really knew this before, but pronouncements are done in a remarkably simple and impersonal way. Most patients who die in the hospital do not go with a bang…
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In Memoriam
There are many reasons why I love medicine. One of them is the ability to dig into the real “stuff” of human existence: life, death, suffering, love, pain, loss, redemption. Another is the speed by which I can get down and dirty. In less than fifteen minutes, I can go from being a complete stranger to…
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Healing By Intention
To heal by tertiary intention is to leave the wound open on purpose; you see it most often in the gritty sort of traumas that leave large chunks of dirt and debris behind, embedded in the still-injured tissue. People often wonder why this is done, as it is natural within our impulsive nature to cover…