Struggling with abortion

Anonymous

My preceptor handed me the chart. “Positive pregnancy test” was scratched in ink on a sticky note on the front. We were at the adolescent medicine clinic at a local under-served high school.

I almost wept today

Mohammed Suhail, MS4 at UCSD SOM

I almost wept today for the first time in years.

My patient was a 45 year old woman with a metastatic soft-tissue sarcoma. Head shaved, eyes tired, she fell asleep twice as I spoke to her. Her daughter, 20 years old, sat nearby and woke her up with a few words in Spanish whenever she drifted back into sleep.

Hillcrest medicine

Brian Nuyen, MS3 at UCSD SOM

I fantasize about rounding with a rock.

A black rock.

A rock so black it sucks vision from your eyes. WHOOOOPH! Like that.

Kept alive by love

Ali Khaki, MS4 at USCD SOM

She was 80ish, at death’s door with Parkinson’s, kept alive by love. She could no longer speak, barely breathed or moved, but when he came, she was alive. He entered her room and her heart raced, he touched her and she tried to smile. It was so beautiful – I could see her love as well.