WRITER * ARTIST * DOCTOR * PATIENT * MOTHER
Medical school teaches us open-ended questions are best. We are told to avoid interrupting patients, allow them get their whole story out before we jump in—to prompt them only with nods or gentle “hmmm’s” and maybe a “tell me more.” But years of practice can erode this open style. Experience focuses our questioning to what…
I’m excited to share that my piece “Harvest Moon” is first place winner in the nonfiction category of the 2019 Bellevue Literary Review Prize. It will appear in the Spring 2019 issue.
“Hey doc, do you have kids?” the father asked as I peered at his squirming son’s eardrum. Though this question has always irked me, I grew accustomed to it. My patients’ parents asked it often. “No, not yet,” I replied, suppressing my irritation while moving on to examine the child’s throat. What I wanted to…
“With a child, time is fluid. It can surge with a springy quickness – a new word each day, pants abruptly too short, crawling that becomes standing, walking, running all within weeks. Or it can meander with a syrupy slowness, the world captured in a day.” From my latest piece has been published by Narratively….
“Mary is sharp as a tack!,” my grandmother marveled, “And she’s excited to meet you.” We walked down the quiet carpeted hall of my grandmother’s retirement community toward Mary’s apartment. She opened the door, eyes bright and snow-white hair coiffed into a chignon. “Welcome! Always good to meet another doctor,” she exclaimed, “Though it’s…