MOOD RING | Joyce Cui

Definition: a color whose hue is somewhat less yellow than that of growing fresh grass or is part of the spectrum lying between blue and yellow

Descriptors: The broccoli on the plate your husband cooked for your dinner together. The skin of the avocado as you stroll through the grocery store on a Sunday, surrounded by other families shopping for their week’s groceries. The grass on afternoon walks after work, where there’s still enough sunlight to illuminate the path in front of you. The hue of your coworker’s shirt as you chat in the workroom between patients. The candles on the cake the nurses brought to celebrate your coresident’s birthday.The strobe lights of the concert you attend on the weekend of your five-day, 40 hour work week.

Definition: a tertiary color with a yellowish or reddish hue, having the color of chocolate or soil.

Descriptors: The wood of the locked door in front of you, trapping you in the hospital hallway for three hours on the first day of your rotation. The background of your coresident’s profile picture as he signs out a list of ten sick patients to you. The coffee you chug at 5 am in the morning, before your first shift as an intern, a senior, and an attending. The paper bags of delivery food you will not have the appetite to eat, as your stomach churns watching a sick patient’s blood pressure each hour of your shift. The skin of the apple your patient’s family leaves untouched as you discuss their loved one’s prognosis with them.

Definition: Of the darkest color possible, that of soot, coal, the sky on a moonless night in open country, or a small hole in a hollow object

Descriptors: The sky outside when you go home, having worked 6 days a week for 15 hours a day. The bags under your eyes, as you pull yourself out of bed for your next shift. The text on your pager, notifying you of your next bolus of admits. The color blanketing you as you lay in your room in your bed, reviewing each patient in your mind, wondering where you could have done more. The rapid response pager, beeping incessantly in your hand. Your stethoscope, listening to the heart of the fourth hypotensive patient of the night. The inferior vena cava on ultrasound, as you try to determine if additional fluids will save or kill the man in front of you. What it looks like under your eyelids, with four more admits to present before your night shift is over.

Definition: a color whose hue resembles that of blood or of the ruby or is that of the long-wave extreme of the visible spectrum

Descriptors: The bag of red blood cells, ran for the fifth time that night for a patient only kept alive by mechanical ventilation and pressors. The notification lighting up your phone at 3 am, letting you know about a patient with a transient heart rate of 110. The cheeks of the patient, voice raised, winded and out of breath at the medical staff attempting to convince him to take his medications.. The line underneath critical lab values written on a sheet, circled and emphasized, tracked every four hours with precise caution. The rimmed, teary eyes of the family member describing their father as a fighter as you voice your concerns that his clinical situation may continue to deteriorate. The color seeping out of every orifice of your patient, of every aspect of your body as you grapple with the wishes of the family and the Hippocratic Oath you took when you were still just a medical student being given their first white coat.

Definition: any color that fall about midway between red and blue in hue

Descriptors: Small gloves encasing rapidly paling fingers pressed down over a ruptured hematoma that refuses to clot. Your patient’s lips as you watch respiratory therapy  crank up the high flow settings over and over as the day progresses, until there’s no higher to do. The color of the clip attached to your ID that reads DOCTOR, solitary and alone during the middle of the night. The lab tube top shoved into a bag with tops of red, blue and gray, carted off to the lab amidst a crowd of nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists and pharmacists. The color blooming across the patient’s wrist as the bedside nurse pokes him with a needle again, desperately searching for blood return as ribs crack under the weight of compressions. The smoothie you sip in the morning during handoff, wondering if you made the right decisions throughout the night; wondering if you’ll ever be good enough.

Definition: a color whose hue is that of the clear sky, the portion of the color spectrum lying between green and violet

Descriptors: Medium-sized gloves, replacing your aching arms to take over the next round of compressions. The scrubs of your fellow, standing at the head of the bed endotracheal tube held steady in his hand. Your attending, discussing contingency planning, your co-residents, side by side with you as you call for the next round of epinephrine. The eyes of a patient after a prolonged intubation, finally able to use a speaking valve to communicate. Your co-resident’s pen color, jotting down notes for hand off after a long night. Pastries laden with blueberries on quiet weekends where everything for once, goes right.The color of the sky through the window, almost close enough to be seen without a sheet of glass.

Definition: Of a pale red color

Descriptors: The sky as the sun peeks out over the horizon, rising on a night where you managed to find time to close your eyes. The extremities of a patient slowly coming down on their pressor requirements as antibiotics treat their infection. The cheeks of the family member thanking you for taking care of their loved one. Your soft, fluffy pillow as you lay down to go to sleep after a long day of work. Your mouth, laughing with your colleagues and your friends right before you get to go home. The sky, as the sun dips under the horizon on your day off, respite after a long stretch of good medicine.

Joyce Cui is a second-year internal medicine resident at UCLA. Having grown up writing fictional and fantasy short stories, she continued to write throughout medical school and residency as a way to reflect on the unique experiences and remember the deeply personal stories of her patients and colleagues that came with a career in medicine.

*A mood ring is a piece of jewelry containing a heat-sensitive liquid crystal stone that changes color based on finger temperature, often said to reflect the wearer's emotions.

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