This story was recently published in Hektoen International A journal of medical humanities to read the full story go to https://hekint.org/2017/01/29/the-company-of-butchers/ A young doctor just raw out of medical school is assigned to the emergency room in the meat market area. A butcher is brought in, totally drunk, all bloody, “his thumb dangling like a lifeless twig […]
Posts in the Blog category:
journaling publicly, especially about my and Dorothy’s writing, projects, connecting with others, promoting writing both published and in progress
prominent themes – health, art, esp as it applies to health
Nurses Who Write
Throughout my 40-year career as a doctor, nurses were my allies, my teachers and my friends. I recently came on the interview below that appeared in the journal, Bellevue Literary Review, about nurses who also put pen to paper, and why they do it. Thank you to every nurse who taught me, befriended me, and […]
Marshmallows
There’s a term for it. For the grief we caregivers suffer when we lose one of our patients. Professional grief, we call it—a phrase that in its dry detachment captures the all-too-rare acknowledgment of the feelings of professional caregivers. We may, or may not, have been trained to support and comfort the immediate family of […]
Learning from Disaster
The art of losing isn’t hard to master…though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster Elizabeth Bishop “Learning from Disaster” is a trip down memory lane, recalling some sad events of my childhood and early adult years that led me on my path to forty years in medicine. The piece comes from my new […]
Twins
Why was she taken? While you remain to question me for your school project? Renee had a project. Her seventh-grade class had been set the task of composing an essay on some aspect of American society. She had settled on tackling the American healthcare system, and after some thought had decided—perhaps her mother had a […]
Art, Article, Arts in Medicine, Books, Health, Learning, Medicine, Memoir, Patients, Website, Writing
First Physical
Here’s a story from my second medical memoir about the importance for doctors to learn from nurses. The book – Healing by Intent – will be released by HARP The People’s Press (www.harppublishing.ca) in 2021 First Physical Her arm dances a pronating ballet, radial hump and hard straight metacarpal ribs familiar as pictures in Cunningham’s […]
Art, Children, Creativity, Health, Journaling, Journeys, Poetry, Stories, Travel, Uncategorized, Website
Hallo, Hallo
I was talking to our friend, Cathy Lin, who works her magic to lift our HARP manuscripts (www.harppublishing.ca) off our computers and ready them for the printers. It put me in mind of the most exotic trip I ever made. I was among a group of physicians and psychologists who visited our Chinese counterparts in […]
Art, Blog, Books, Children, Creativity, Health, Loss, Medicine, Memoir, Patients, Poetry, Publishing, Stories, Website
Allies
This is my third posting from my second medical memoir, Healing by Intent, to be published soon by HARP (www.harppublishing.ca). I especially like this story for the wonderful interweaving that Anne, our trainee pediatric oncologist, showed between her medical expertise and her deep humanity towards her patient, Shelley (name changed). And two months ago, perhaps […]
Art, Arts in Medicine, Books, Children, Creativity, Health, Journeys, Loss, Medicine, Memoir, Patients, Publishing, Stories, Website, Writing
Healing by Intent – Prologue
I’ve just finished my second medical memoir, which I’m calling it Healing by Intent. So I’m posting a few extracts here on my website and on my Facebook site. The last one I posted three weeks ago – Professional Grief – was about the tough issue all we caregivers face, that of dealing with our […]
HARP: Our new publishing house
HARP Home HARP Publishing, The People’s Press is a multi-media publisher focusing on the healing arts and the arts for health equity. Dorothy and I are co-publishers, and we are focusing on a popular readership of caregivers and care receivers, in both electronic and print media. About Our Logo The acronym, HARP, stands for Healing Arts, Reconciling People. […]