I was supposed to be an overachiever. You know, one of those doctors who finish community service and go straight into a registrar post and become a specialist at age 32, then a prof before 40! Instead, I am edging closer and closer to 30 and working in a warehouse on a contract basis that … Continue reading Average achiever
Vaccines save lives; fear endangers them.Jeffrey Kluger I got my COVID-19 vaccine today and I won't lie, it was emotional. I feel immensely privileged and honored to be amongst the first in the world to be vaccinated, and the magnitude of the moment was overwhelming. So many people have questions about the vaccine. I realized … Continue reading COVID-19 Vaccine Myths
There is a light somewhere. It may not be much light but it beats the darkness.Charles Bukowski In December I wrote a post about humanity and it's brokenness. I said that I really want to believe that humans are inherently good, but the current state of the affairs is making that incredibly difficult to do … Continue reading Sunlight
I want to write a poem but I can't even think straight. I want to write a poem but I don't know where to start. Do I write about my day? My day without water or food or the chance to catch my breath (figuratively). Or do I write about my patients who cannot catch … Continue reading If 1.6 million lives lost won’t convince them then what will one poem do?
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.Martin Luther King, Jr It is December 2020 and our world is a mess. It feels like this whole year has been lost to this pandemic. Yet case numbers continue to rise, and people continue to believe/pretend that this virus is not real … Continue reading The biggest driver of this pandemic is ignorance
On Friday I spent the afternoon in a tug of war. On one side were me and my colleagues and on the other was whatever happens after you die. The Light, heaven, hell, nothing, I don't know? I just know that it was a tug of war between life and death, and life lost. In … Continue reading Tug of war
In January this year, I found myself staring at a CT scan with a group of people in white coats. This is a pretty normal thing for a doctor to be doing; except I was in Mexico and the CT scan was my own, and I was wearing a hospital gown instead of a white … Continue reading The lessons that being a patient taught me about being a doctor
He is so thin, I think. Emaciated, I write. But what does that mean? "Skeletal" "Gaunt" "Shrunken" "Shrivelled". "Emaciare" is the Latin: "Made thin" I think it means if you don't look close enough you might not see him. You might not see beyond his disease. HIV, TB, malnutrition, starvation, poverty, oppression, suffering. Hopelessness. An … Continue reading Made thin.
Why are doctors so quick to criticize one another? What is it about the medical culture that enables us, not only to easily recognize but actively seek out one another's mistakes? When did we forget that we are all human? Why does it take a colleague losing their life over a mistake before we show … Continue reading Doctors, let’s be kind to each other.
A grown man sobs into his handkerchief. I am telling him that we need to send him to a different hospital for a scan of his lungs. We don't know why we can't get him off the oxygen. He looks at me, tries to smile but tears begin to run down his face. I ask … Continue reading This too shall pass
