Susan Carlson’s work has appeared in various journals including Passager, River Heron Review, Gyroscope Review, Typishly and Persimmon Tree. Her poem “The Operating Room” appears in the Fall 2023 Intima.
“I like Beethoven the best!” is a declaration made by a patient of Mitali Chaudhary, as she readies to leave his hospital room. A busy senior medical resident at the University of Toronto, Chaudhary juggles many demanding responsibilities with her desire to get to know this elderly patient. In her Field Notes essay titled “Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5,” published in Intima’s Fall 2023 issue, she recalls how she’d tried to get her patient to respond to questions about symptomatology, all the while aware that twenty-three other patients – along with a group of junior residents and medical students – were awaiting her time and attention. In that moment, she finds herself turning away from an opportunity for a personal interaction with him in order to ensure she manages her tasks appropriately.
Chaudhary’s desire to see and serve the whole person is clear in her recounting of this exchange – as I suspect it was to her patient at the time. Reading her words, I flashed back to my various hospitalizations in the busy teaching hospital I was fortunate enough to have nearby when I needed extended medical care. I’d often sensed an unspoken tension in the medical professionals who stopped by my room to ask and answer medical questions during their daily rounds. Most often I could feel their warmth even as they glanced surreptitiously at the clock on the wall or the pagers in their pockets. Occasionally, they sacrificed that warmth to responsibility, coming in and out in a hushed and hurried blur.
And there were those wonderful occasions with those whose demeanor belied the weight of their professional demands as they slowed down and spoke with me in a manner that left me feeling more person than patient – a person in conversation with a professional, yes, but a professional person who saw and spoke to me with patience and personal recognition. As the days in my hospital rooms turned into weeks, the impact of these interactions became a lifeline to me – they were moments that reminded me of my humanity, that reconnected me with a sense of hope and possibility.
I wrote about one those moments in “The Operating Room,” a poem that appeared in the same Fall 2023 issue. Prepping me for yet another surgery, a warm and funny anesthesiologist noticed a worn rock I was holding in my hand and deduced that it served as a talisman for me. As he prepared to administer the anesthesia, a nurse came to collect my rock and place it with my other belongings. Recognizing that, in addition to handing over my worry stone, I was surrendering – once again – my consciousness and sense of agency, that anesthesiologist took my rock from the nurse, taped it firmly into the palm of my hand, then closed my fingers around it and patted my hand,
Chaudhary’s essay demonstrates how deeply she understands and values the power of such interactions between patient and care provider. After reflection on the missed opportunity to ask her patient about his love of Beethoven, she returns to him during the following day’s rounds and asks him about his favorite Beethoven piece. Soon, they are sitting together “listening to the first commanding notes of Symphony No.5 float out of the speaker” they held between them. Reading this, I couldn’t help but think that I understood exactly how her patient felt as that music filled the air.
Susan Carlson lives and works in southeastern Michigan. Her work has appeared in various journals including Passager, River Heron Review, Gyroscope Review, Typishly and Persimmon Tree. Carlson has received a Best of the Net nomination.