“I like Beethoven the best!” is a declaration made by a patient of Mitali Chaudhary, as she readies to leave his hospital room. A busy senior medical resident at the University of Toronto, Chaudhary juggles many demanding responsibilities with her desire to get to know this elderly patient. In her Field Notes essay titled “Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5,” published in Intima’s Fall 2023 issue, she recalls how she’d tried to get her patient to respond to questions about symptomatology, all the while aware that twenty-three other patients – along with a group of junior residents and medical students – were awaiting her time and attention. In that moment, she finds herself turning away from an opportunity for a personal interaction with him in order to ensure she manages her tasks appropriately.
Read moreThe Thing About ‘Good News’ at the Doctor’s Office by neuropsychology postdoc fellow Sarajane Rodgers
In theory, whenever we go to the doctor, most of us want to hear “good news.” The test is negative. You don’t have ___. Your results are inconsistent with ___. There are times where we take that in and walk away with an emotional weight removed. Other times, we are left with a void. The diagnosis we thought we could hang a hat on is taken away. Now where do we put our hat?
Read moreOn Subtraction: Understanding What's Lost and Gained in Clinical Encounters by Abby Wheeler
I recognized right away a kinship with Bessie Liu’s “Variations on the Negative Space Before Healing” (Fall 2023) and its use of subtraction to create new meaning; The poem by Liu, a third-year medical student at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. very much feels like a sister to my poem, At the Doctor’s Office, I Check, Yes, I Have Experienced the Following: Sudden Weight Loss (Fall 2023).
Read moreOn Sinatra, Bach, and Daughters: The Power of True Joy in the Face of Illness
A medical student reflects on the loss of their father to a devastating neurodegenerative disease as well as the power that music can hold during the illness experience.
Read moreReligious Moments in Medical Practice by internist John Pierce
A retired physician reflects on his glimpses into religion and spirituality while confronting his patients’ illness and suffering—as well as his own.
Read moreLet Me Speak My Free Mind into You: Seeking Genuine Connection in Medical Practice
A medical student examines two poems published in this journal in order to advocate for genuine connection in medical practice between patients and physicians.
Read moreTaking Him Apart Took Me Apart, Too: On medical school and anatomy class by Chrissie DyBuncio
A former physician reflects on the rite of passage undergone by all medical students: cadaver dissections in anatomy lab.
Read moreDesensitization to the Face of Death: A reflection by poet and medical student Catherine Read
A medical student examines the desensitization that imbues the study and practice of medicine—and advocates against it.
Read moreThe Luxury of Walking Away: An MS4 meditates on time, isolation and the comforts of home
A medical student contemplates her roles as a physician-in-training and learns to appreciate the privilege she possesses—unlike her patients—in walking away from the clinical space.
Read moreThe Gifts Reserved for Age: A Reflection by Richard Scott Morehead
A professor of medicine reminisces about his former student, whose work appears alongside his own in this very journal.
Read moreCuring Bodies: How Uncertainty and Variation Shape Early Experiences in Medicine by Anna Harvey Bluemel
A physician reflects on the uncertainty that comes with the study of the human body, and the unpredictability that comes with the pursuit of medicine.
Read moreTo Enhance, Supplement, and Support
What is the physician’s role in the clinical encounter, and what is their responsibility to the patient? A physician reflects.
Read moreBedside Mannerisms: Finding the time to care by pediatrics resident Vidya Viswanathan
In medical training, there is an increasing didactic focus on empathy and professionalism. In many of these sessions, I have learned certain skills: Sit down at the patient’s level. Ask them open-ended questions. Don’t interrupt. Use an in-person, video or phone interpreter. These skills are helpful. But often, they run up against the great limiting factor in many of our clinical encounters: time.
Read moreOn Vulnerability and Transformation, a reflection on open hearts and medical training by hematologist-oncologist Jennifer Lycette
“Retrospection Series” (Fall 2019 Intima), Joseph Burns writes on undergoing open-heart surgery at age twenty-three, only two months before In he started medical school. At first, he is reluctant to share his story with his peers. “It was a secret that was contained within the walls of the physical exam simulation rooms.” But as his training moves forward, he is motivated by his experiences “to become the best physician possible…to be the one who provides care, love, compassion, and primarily hope in situations where all may seem lost.”
Read moreConnecting with the World of Our Patients: A Reflection by Savita Rani
In her poem “Internet Dating for Centenarians” (Intima, Fall 2021), Sarah Smith paints an animated picture of her cheeky and cheerful elderly patient. Smith, a board-certified family physician and author of The Doctor Will Be Late, describes her dilemma about which topic to discuss with her patient—lipids or love.
Read moreWhen Medical Professionals Care for Their Own: A Response to “Of Prematurity and Parental Leave,” by Mason Vierra
“Of Prematurity and Parental Leave” (Intima, Fall 2021) describes the harrowing experience of giving birth to a premature baby during residency. It’s written by doctors married to each other —Dr. Campagnaro and Dr. Woodside—who co-construct a narrative by telling it from their own perspective.
Read moreShakespeare, Stanzas and How We Think About Death by Albert Howard Carter, III, PhD
When my sonnet “All Tuned Up” appeared (Spring 2021 Intima), I was asked to write about another piece published in the journal. I chose “I Picture You Here, But You’re There” (Spring 2020 Intima) by Delilah Leibowitz. Her poem and mine both explore how we think and feel about death.
Read moreHow a Doctor Learns to Act: A Reflection by Claire Unis, MD
“Am I becoming / something unfamiliar?” asks Lauren Fields in her poem “My First Mask Was a White Coat” and in that simple question she brings back for me the struggle of becoming. With our first medical school clerkships we don white coats and mimic our preceptors: some false confidence here, a prayer for invisibility there. Silent reassurances never spoken aloud: It’s okay to pretend at doctoring. That’s how you learn.
Read moreAuscultating Meaning: Reflections on the Heart of Medicine by Marc Perlman
© Gordian Knot by Elisabeth Preston-Hsu Spring 2020 Intima A Journal of Narrative Medicine
From diaphragm to earpiece, a stethoscope dutifully chaperones a patient’s internal orchestra to a clinician’s ears. This facile acoustic communication not only allows a provider to screen for a wide host of cardiovascular, pulmonary and gastrointestinal anomalies, but it also may be a conduit for moral reflection.
Read moreDoctoring and Disobedience: Speaking an Important Truth, a reflection by Kelly Elterman
Sometimes, the truth can be uncomfortable. It can be difficult to hear and often, even more difficult to say. In her Field Notes piece entitled “Doctoring and Disobedience” (Spring 2020 Intima) Dr. Lisa Jacobs recalls her struggle with being told to hide the truth of a prognosis from an elderly patient with metastatic disease. Despite the instruction of her attending physician, and the decision of the patient’s family and ethics team to not speak of death to the patient, Dr. Jacobs feels compelled to let her cognitively-intact patient learn the truth. So strong is her conviction that she takes on considerable risk to her own career for the sake of bringing the truth to her patient.
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