A retired hematologist explores the importance of clinical communication and health literacy by close reading two pieces published in this journal.
Read moreA Moment of Intimacy
A writer questions the dynamics that shape—as well as disguise—not only the clinical encounter, but also personhood, identity, and intimacy.
Read moreHow Patients Teach Us by Catalina Flores
A nurse contemplates how and why patients are made to feel like burdens—simply for having several needs.
Read moreThe Importance of Touch in Medicine (and Beyond) by neonatologist Katherine C. White
A retired neonatologist recalls her time in the NICU when the specter of HIV loomed large—and laments the precautions against touch that have returned with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read moreOn "Where Are You, Mary Oliver?" A pediatric ER doctor contemplates what two poets taught her about healing
A pediatric emergency physician reflects on the enduring power and comfort of Mary Oliver’s poetry during difficult times.
Read moreSurprising Behavior in the Pandemic
A palliative care nurse analyzes poetry and studio art created in response to the ongoing pandemic—and appreciates how these different pieces generate surprising parallels.
Read moreCostumes: What a Plague Doctor Wears to Deliver Care by family physician Carla Barkman →
This past Halloween, I rewatched The Rocky Horror Picture Show and thought about costumes. Who here is truly in disguise? Is it Frank-N-Furter with his heavy eye makeup, corset and garter, or Janet and Brad with their buttoned-up blouses, white doll shoes and matching purse, who come alive only after they are stripped to their underclothes and made up, for the final performance, in drag? Sometimes we dress up as monsters, but perhaps more often we hide our quirky selves beneath bland cloaks of conformity, afraid of the attention an unusual performance might attract.
Read moreSirens and Hummingbirds: How Poetry Can Make Sense out of the Mundane by MS4 Anna Dovre
As a medical student, I've gotten into the habit of saving folded-up scrap paper from the hospital and stealing moments during rounds or lectures to jot down scattered words and phrases. They're things I can't get out of my head, like "white cheddar Cheez-its® and stale cigarettes" or "I'm not a bad Mom." Snippets that don't make sense on their own, but together they have a strange sort of alchemy. The distilled essence of a day's humanity. A tragicomic piece of found poetry. After my first year of clinical rotations, I decided to sit down and see what I could cobble together to find out whether meaning would come if I made space for it. What arrived was, if not meaningful, at least interesting, and it eventually became "Self Portrait of the Artist as Medical Student."
Read moreWarmth, Body and Longing by Sonya Huber
While writing my essay collection on chronic pain, Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and Other Essays from a Nervous System, I began to explore a relationship with my body that was not constrained to the pain of rheumatoid arthritis. I began to lean into examples provided by such beautiful works as Anatole Broyard’s book Intoxicated By My Illness.
Read moreHow to Hold Cold Hands by Laura-Anne White
I have spent my career as a nurse working with adult cancer patients. I, too, have experience with the self-protective tool of ‘numbing.’ Last spring, the COVID-19 pandemic hit New York City at full force, and I was temporarily transferred to an inpatient, COVID-19-positive cancer unit. I saw no one aside from co-workers, patients, and other essential workers.
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