The pager beeps early on the first day of my inpatient pediatric neurology service week. The pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) would like us to perform a brain death examination on a young boy before potential organ donation. An apparently healthy b…
We lived in the woods. Five acres of trees. You could barely see the sky. We left the big city for this piece of heaven. And by chance, we met a couple that had a 5-year-old daughter. Our son was four years old. They became best friends. They’d s…
The COVID ICU is abuzz with monitors beeping and doctors and nurses rushing from bed to bed to care for critically ill patients, most on ventilators. The machines – dialysis, vents, pumps – sound off their rhythmic repetitions; breaths are pushed in an…
I wasn’t supposed to hear this, but I did. It sealed the deal for me. It was one of the reasons I had to finally leave my true love: ICU nursing. After 33 years as an ICU nurse, I knew it was time to go. I used to feel like I had a purpose. I
Rea…
Six years ago, I met a man who was 93 years old. I sat down to listen to him, something we physicians don’t do as often as we should in the long-term care setting. “I want you to treat me like I’m 73,” he said, “What do yo…
She was 82 years old — sweet, frail, and maybe four feet eight inches tall. She had many beloved children, grandchildren, and even a few great-grandchildren They all grew up knowing that family was their core — their base, their home where love resided…
Last evening I crumbled in the arms of my patient and wept. This was unknown territory to me, an unexpected role reversal. For three weeks after my Mom’s death, I maintained a stoic distance as patients offered their condolences, as they asked ab…
When I quit my clinic job after four waves of the COVID-19 pandemic as an intensivist, I decided not to work in direct patient care for a while. I expected harsh criticism from my colleagues. Surprisingly, that never happened. The feedback was unexpect…
I have recently undergone (yet another) transition and am now back to living at home with my family full time instead of in an apartment half of the time. So wonderful most of the time … I think. It is amazing and a very big wake-up call that I missed …
One morning, I was sitting in resident lecture. This time was supposedly protected, but we realized fairly quickly that the work still had to be done, and “I had lecture” never really worked out well as an explanation. By this time in the w…
