When I read the Field Notes essay “Letter to My Oncologist” (Fall 2025 Intima), I was struck by how the writer, psychologist Julia Dobner-Pereira, watches her physician for the smallest fracture of a moment in composure—and how the physician watches her for the same. Their exchanges sit on a narrow ledge—two people trying to hold each other’s fear without admitting how much weight they’re carrying. I recognized that terrain immediately. As a clinician, I’ve felt patients monitor my breathing, my pauses, my half-smiles.
Read moreThe Discordant Note of the Estranged Daughter from California. A reflection about medically-assisted death by Amanda Le Rougetel
The “estranged daughter from California” is an expression used by MAiD practitioners to describe that relative who shows up to rail against the dying person’s wishes to end their life.
Read moreGetting to Say Goodbye: A reflection by patient advocate Holly Cantley
“There is bravery in enduring. There is bravery in leaving.”
Read moreReflecting on the courageous who have left imprints on our soul by Miki Simic
We carry them in our thoughts and in our prayers. It is the unspoken in the medical field. The hesitation you feel, to show at times, you hurt for them, with them, through them. The patient unaware that emotion is viable and present when treating, caring, or guiding steps to an end, no matter what that may be. Their physical bodies are present at the appointments, but their souls are searching elsewhere for meaning. The “why” of illness.
Read moreFear of Loss: A reflection by medical student and Intima editor, Grace Yi
In “Mathematical Fix | ation” (Fall 2023 Intima), Laura Pinto describes the slow decline of her father’s ability to communicate. She tries her best to accompany him along his inward spiral of dementia, in which he has become completely fixated on arithmetic and logic, to the point that she calls him “Professor” rather than father. I am struck by the small joys she discovers in his lucid moments at the end of his life, such as when he calls her by name, only once, in the way he did when she was young. Putting myself in her shoes, I wonder if I would have the grace and openness of heart to delight in similar moments, as untethered as I imagine I might be in the face of impending loss.
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