We see death so often as healthcare providers. I think often about the cognitive dissonance it brings to our lives: coming in such intimate proximity with it, discussing it in depth with people about themselves or their loved ones, and then returning and retreating to our own spaces and people and homes as if we can be safely tucked away from its harsh reality.
Read moreA Poem of Thanks: A Reflection by Poet/Physician Dianne Silvestri
I wanted my note to sound grateful, but the words couldn’t mask my sorrow over my alienation from any familiar or valuable path. I had lived through transplantation of a stranger’s stem cells into me. The mandatory one year of donor anonymity had passed. Surely I must send thanks to the donor whose cells were keeping me alive. But three years swept me back and forth from the hospital, trying to survive infections and graft-vs-host attacks. I saw my husband’s head shake “no” to each next draft I attempted.
Read moreMoments of Humanity During a Clinician’s Day: A Reflection by Joanne Wilkinson
For many physicians, a clinical day is a river of tasks to be navigated….These moments come to us randomly, often without any advance warning.
Read moreArt, Dance, and Grief: A Reflection by Tessa Palisoc and Andrew Murdock
Medical students Tessa Palisoc and Andrew Murdock comment on how the arts—in this instance painting and dance—allow the artist and the observer to “process death and find a nuanced perspective of loss.”
Read moreThose Who Came Before: A Promise and a Reflection by medical student-artist Angela Tang-Tan
Medical student Angela Tang-Tan, creator of the cartoon, “White Coat Ceremony,” worked as an EMT transporter during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this blog post, she reflects on a poem from that difficult time by by geriatrician Terry E. Hill, MD entitled, “Points of Historical Interest.”
Read morePrayers: A Reflection by Angela Tang-Tan
I hesitated to write “Top Surgery,” and I hesitated even more to submit it. In it, I wrote that “I stand with my back to the wall, drawing silence around me like armor.”
Read moreMy Illness, My Story: Graphic Medicine and Narratives by Maja Milkowska-Shibata
Maja Milkowska-Shibata, creator of “Beyond Broken: The Science of Bone Lengthening
and My Ilizarov Story” in the Fall 2024 issue of Intima expresses her appreciation for fellow graphic artist, Gianna Paniagua, whose comic, “Human Experience,” appeared in the Fall 2022 issue.
The Strange Experience of Learning the Art of Medicine by chaplain Elizabeth Ryder
Essayist and chaplain Elizabeth Ryder, author of “String of Pearls” in the Fall 2024 issue of Intima, reflects on an essay by Anna Dovre entitled “Body of Work,” written by family medicine resident Dr. Dovre.
Read moreThe Art of Being Here: A Reflection on the Hidden Moments of Care by medical student Tiffany Chen
Medical student Tiffany Chen, author of “Coffee and Crosswords” in the Fall 2024 issue of Intima, shares an appreciation of Kirilee West’s Studio Art pieces in, “The Art of Being Here,” from the Spring 2022 issue. West beautifully depicts “hidden” moments of care, and her artwork shows different providers attending to patients and ensuring they are comfortable even when they are not fully conscious.
Read moreRemember, Everything Changed Five Years Ago Today by public health physician Emily Groot
When I read the first reports of atypical pneumonia out of China, I wasn’t worried. Now, in hindsight, this is embarrassing to admit. But every few months, there’s something new. MERS-CoV, Zika, enterovirus D68. We watch, we wait, sometimes we prepare. Usually, the impact is small. Or, at least, the impact is far away: cruelly and unfairly, caring is the inverse of distance. So, forgive me if, at first, I did not care about SARS-CoV-2.
Read moreUn/Burdened: A reflection by physician/poet Ryan Boyland about empathy, self-care and shared joy
I leave the hospital, but the hospital doesn’t always leave me. I carry my stress in a thin band across my upper back. On the good days, I think about a patient I sent to a recovery center. I think I did a good job. On the bad days, I find myself scrolling for far too long, when another shift is coming in entirely too few hours, because, as I wrote in my poem “Omens,” “while I am awake, he is still alive.”
Read moreHow to Have Empathy for Others As Well as Ourselves: A Reflection by clinician Jennifer Anderson
As I read Sarah Gundle’s essay “I Can’t Remember His Name” (Intima, Spring 2023), I recognized a young and eager clinician who felt both moved by someone’s story and inept at affecting change, a dissonance that can reverberate throughout decades of practice. I, too, remembered my earliest encounters, when my own therapeutic skin was most supple and soft, vulnerable to the bruising weights of trauma, addiction and injustice. I recognized the writer’s spontaneous tears – and the impulse to minimize and dismiss them in accordance with the guidelines of rational detachment and therapeutic rapport.
Read moreDeepening Insights on Metaphors for Pain and Medical Care by Vilmarie Sanchez-Rothkegel
In my non-fiction essay "House of Pain" essay (Fall 2024 Intima), I discuss the problematic MS Hug metaphor, used for unpredictable and distressing chest spasms that can make breathing feel impossible. Hugs are a form of affection, except this one is not. I remember being caught off guard by the intensity of the pain. Words in Logan Shannon’s non-fiction essay “The Gold Standard” (Fall 2019 Intima) resonate profoundly: “It’s the pain that comes from nowhere, the surprise, that throws me.”
Read moreRituals of Care: How We All Possess More Agency in the World Than We Think: A reflection by doctor Gaetan Sgro
There is a tendency in times of upheaval to overestimate the agency of certain individuals. Anxieties engender a cast of heroes and villains making games of global events. But the kernels of truth in these conceptions obscure the relatively small influence such figures exert on our daily lives. Still, there is comfort in the notion that somebody, somewhere, is in charge; perhaps because it suggests that we, ourselves, possess more agency than we perceive and are not, as so often seems, simply adrift on the currents of fate.
Read moreWe Are Not Amazons: A Reflection by Medical Illustrator Mesa Schumacher
In my professional role as a medical illustrator, I'm often drawn to a good metaphor. As a patient, the allure of metaphor can be dangerous.
Read moreGiving Up Metaphors: A reflection about how we talk about illness by poet physician Ronald Lands
In both the literary world and in the clinical world, metaphors take hold of our relationship to illness and health.
“Giving Up the Fight,” by Rebeca Stanfel (Spring 2023 Intima) is a first-person account of her struggle with sarcoidosis and the metaphors that complicated her ability to deal with it. Well-meaning friends and family assailed her with encouragement that depicted chronic illness as a battle to be won or lost.
Read moreNormalizing—and Honoring—the Process of Dying," a reflection by veterinarian Jackie Greenwood
Jen Baker-Porazinski's story “Dying at Home” (Spring 2024 Intima) drew a vivid picture of a patient and her family, and the rhythm of her last few weeks. The love and dedication of her husband was especially moving.
I was also struck by the narration of Baker-Porazinski’s journey, as a doctor. Reflexively, at each visit, she listened to her patient's heart and took her blood pressure. Baker-Porazinski felt this showed that she hadn’t given up on her patient .
Read moreBig Moments are Surrounded by Little Moments: An End-of-Year Reflection by doctor Rory O’Sullivan
Big moments are surrounded by little moments. That’s what I was trying to pull out in my story “There’s a Special On Car Washes,” published in the latest issue of Intima. That bewildering sensation, common in life and especially in healthcare, that extraordinary things happen but that time marches on without sentimentality. You win the big game but when you get home you still have to take out the garbage. You receive a life-changing diagnosis and then you have to figure out the machine to get out of the hospital parking lot.
Read moreWitnessing Grief by pediatric hospitalist Sophia Gauthier
Grief walks in many forms, and its footsteps are padded and quiet, imperceptible even, except to those who lay awake at night, counting its tip taps on the upper floor.
Read moreFinding the Human in Humanity. A reflection by Zoran Naumovski
I have been practicing medicine since completing my residency in June 2000. It baffles me that to this day I still hear comments from patients, families and loved ones that we physicians often cannot relate to their concerns, their health struggles and their ailments because we are doctors, because we harbor medical knowledge, because “we are not human.”
Read more