I was looking forward to having Memorial Day weekend off. It was Friday, and we—the medical students rotating on general surgery—had just been informed that we were expected to round on our post-operative patients on at least one day over the long weekend. I suppose I should have always expected to work the weekend, especially Read the full article…

Photo by Sally Huang -A story adapted from a de-identified Electronic Medical Record ‘One half of mankind does not know how the other half lives’ -A Madman from History … Man and Woman At first there were two young adults – Man and Woman. They met in the middle, crossing paths as it were, going Read the full article…

Ben Oco regarded the pill bottle in his hand, lifting it to a pallid incandescent light. Tears rolling down his cheeks, breath laden with alcohol, he twisted off the cap and shook the bottle’s contents onto his palm. He wept as he tossed the eleven capsules into his mouth and gulped sloppily from his bottle Read the full article…

“Booth nineteen. Where the f*** is Booth nineteen?” Michelle whispered to herself as she slipped on the polished concrete floor. She looked drunk, but she wasn’t. She was just lost and frightened and hadn’t slept for days. She usually dressed tactically to conceal her plumpish core and skinny limbs, but this morning arrived at her Read the full article…

Attribution: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons Portrait of a Patient Dr. David Hopper sat down on Mr. E’s empty hospital bed. It felt good to rest on the blank white sheets for just a minute. Hiding behind the bed curtain, he let his tired eyes close. The wartime sounds of the History Read the full article…

A pandemic A civil uprising And me, struggling to remember the course of the cranial nerves through your skull Outside my window the streets of Philadelphia are flooded with anguish Loud anguish So I look up from my video on muscular dystrophy And see her name I hate myself for thinking: “Oh, still that.” As Read the full article…

Photo by Sally Huang James Liu folded back the top sheet of his blanket, resting his palms on the pale white expanse of hospital bed. Morning light streamed through the open window, the California sunshine warm and golden even in late September. He hoped it eased the sharp lines of his face, the wrinkles that Read the full article…

It was 6:48am, and Dr. Wick’s spectacles were aglow with the sterile whiteness of fluorescent lights. Bow tie, beard, and bifocals in tortoiseshell – doing absolutely nothing to subvert the shrink stereotype. I was tired. A building-wide fire alarm was a rude awakening, and my morning reflection was catastrophic – my eyes laced with grit, Read the full article…

For several years, Doctor Moreau dressed as Santa Claus to cheer gathered children and listen to their Christmas wishes during his church’s annual fall pageant in Tallahassee. Flushed, with a tendency to overeat, he wore a large Santa suit, a long white beard and the usual thick, white collar. He almost suffocated. But compliments poured Read the full article…

Can’t they clear this out?  I often thought to myself as I walked into work. The pile of stuff in the hallway — two upside-down tables, several upside-down chairs, old computer monitors, some power cords, and an assortment of unidentifiable metal objects – made the hospital feel like a junkyard, like I should be coming Read the full article…