As I was creating Hal Winters, the character at the center of my short story, “Old Scrubs,” (Spring 2024 Intima) I imagined a rumpled, gray-haired, and unflappable older male surgeon who has seen it all. He heads to the hospital every day, goes through the motions and gets his work done without fanfare or fireworks. He hasn’t felt the spark of “why” he went into medicine for years but, as long as he remembers the “how,” he will keep plowing the same furrow.
Read moreThe Luxury of Walking Away: An MS4 meditates on time, isolation and the comforts of home
A medical student contemplates her roles as a physician-in-training and learns to appreciate the privilege she possesses—unlike her patients—in walking away from the clinical space.
Read moreExploring End-of-Life themes in "Nay Nay's Rebirth," a short story by Sara Lynne Wright
A retired surgeon reflects on a short story published in this journal—and in doing so, also contemplates how a comfortable and humane death can be fulfilled at the end of life.
Read morePoems Help Us Deal with Change and Choice by Anne Corey
A writer advocates for the power of poetry—as well as its curious ability to make us better accept uncertainty, mystery, and even ourselves.
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