Welcome to Pulse
Telling the personal story of health care...by and for everyone--patients, health professionals and students of narrative medicine.
Subscribe/Energize
Join the 11,000+ who receive Pulse weekly
Energize your subscription
with a contribution and
keep Pulse vibrant
Pleasures of the Harbor
Whatever Else
Jack Coulehan ~
Of course, I wanted to save you
from all this--from machines
and plastic tubes, from the shooters
with their dyes, from the guys
who scan your organs
for the truth, from waits in cold rooms
whose lights illuminate your life
and make it...nothing. I respected
the darkness in you--your son
dead in a senseless crash, the stroke
itself, your husband's absence.
Love in the Time of COVID-19
Sarah Stumbar ~
COVID-19 changes everything--even, or especially, love. It demands that we love differently, and in new ways. For me, this is what #loveinthetimeofcovid19 looks like.
My husband, Lunan, and I are both doctors. Lunan, a urologist, is completing his final year of training in New York City, and I am a family-physician educator at a medical school in Miami.
We are living separately this year--one of the many sacrifices we've made in pursuing our medical training over the past twelve years. Since August, he and I been traveling back and forth to see each other two or three times per month. Now we're not sure when we'll be together again--and for us, that has been the most painful and personal part of the daily reality of COVID-19.
I love being a family physician and caring for my patients, but the mobile health center where I work was shut down this week as we transitioned to telehealth. Without personal protective equipment, we couldn't safely care for our patients within our clinic's tight confines.
Not What I Expected
Samantha Hammond ~
As I struggled my way through nursing school, I never expected my first job as a nurse to feel like this; I was too busy dreaming of the day when I could hold the title of Registered Nurse.
I never expected to come home crying. I never expected that, at times, I'd mumble the words "I hate my job." I never expected many of the challenges I face daily--but here I am, six weeks into my first hospital job, fighting to make it. Here I am, figuring out what it means to be a nurse, learning what to expect.
It is early afternoon, and I have just finished administering my last midday medication. I emerge from the patient's room to find that five call bells are buzzing; there is no other nurse or aide in sight. I begin to wonder if everyone is purposely disappearing in order to test the new kid.
Our latest...
a vibrant anthology of stories and poems
Foreword by Perri Klass MD and Sketches by Alan Blum MD
"Pulse is that rare confluence of the best of medicine and modern life...This anthology is a total pleasure." Louise Aronson MD
Now available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Encounters
Encounters, our latest feature: Patients talk about their healthcare experiences and share stories about their lives outside the doctor's office. Popular Tags
Latest Comments
-
Whatever Else
Thank you so much - I've more than once "lost sight of [their] body", overwhelmed by my patients' ... -
Love in the Time of COVID-19
Your story was fascinating to me. I'm so glad you wrote and shared it. My best to you, your husband and ... -
Whatever Else
This moved me a great deal, which I take to mean that the poet, unknown to me, accomplished in the ...
Pulse Links
-
Common Sense Family Doctor
Kenny Lin's practical take on health and medicine
-
FMEC (Family Medicine Education Consortium
Bridging people and ideas to improve health care
-
Hospital Drive
Reflective practice in word and image from UVA School of Medicine
-
KevinMD
Healthcare perspectives curated by Kevin Pho
-
Social Medicine Portal
Worldwide perspectives on social forces impacting health and medicine