It was 1991, during the summer between my first and second years of medical school. I was in the basement of a Christian clinic in Times Square. The clinic provided free medical care for homeless people in New York City. I was filling up a tub with warm soapy water so one of our homeless clients could soak his feet.Read more…
Do Doctors Make Bank?
Summer had finally emerged and we were sitting out on my front steps, enjoying the afternoon heat and watching some of the other kids play out on the street. Some of the teenagers were casually tossing a football around, throwingRead more…
Rituals of Annotation
I am not exactly sure of what prompted me to do it, but I began keeping a tally of all the pronouncements I have done. A pronouncement is that act in which a doctor officially declares a person to beRead more…
The Pursuit of Suffering
I watched the grainy, blocky video in silence. My friend was singing “Landslide” and I felt a certain tautness in my eyebrows and a peculiar heaviness in the corners of my mouth. By now it had become a familiar feeling,Read more…
Introductions: Dissection of body and soul
Medical school is mostly boring and the parts that are not are often tragic, which is why few people write about the experience. Prospects facing newly-minted residents and attendings are not much better, as the overwhelming secularization of a disciplineRead more…
Juggling the demands of higher ed
If you haven’t had the 3+ hours necessary to watch the Youtube video of the Vanderbilt Town Meeting (1/31/2012), then I recommend this 6 minute and forty second highlight video At present I don’t have more to add to Prayerful consideration & Discussion:Read more…