The following manuscript was submitted to the April 2017 Arts in Medicine Themed Writing Contest.
Come one, come all, to the emergency room
It’s one a.m., and the rashes are in bloom
Kids have asthma, kids have stridor
Kids have bites from angry snakes and spiders
They’ll be admitted
In the seventh floor tower
We have the beds
And they have the power
They’ll come up
And we’ll take a history
But guess what
We won’t solve your mystery
For we are the masters of patchwork
That’s what we do
Our pagers go off
And we’ll come to help you
We’ll help you breathe
We’ll help you sleep
But what ails you?
That’s for the day team
We can give you oxygen
We can help you poop
We can give you Motrin
If you give us the “scoop”
We’ll put in some orders
For your well-being
You’ll sleep while we work
Your labs’ll be back in the morning
We’ll present you to the team
Then we’ll go to bed
What’s your etiology
Will go through our collective heads
Perhaps we’ll know tomorrow
When we’re back on again
For we are the masters of patchwork
And we’ll see you then
Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Children's Hospital of Richmond at Virginia Commonwealth University
Jared Klein is a PGY-3 at Children's Hospital of Richmond at Virginia Commonwealth University. He earned his medical degree and master of public health at Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in Dayton, Ohio and earned a B.S. in Psychology from The Ohio State University in 2009. After graduation, he will begin his pediatric cardiology fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic. In his free time he enjoys theatrical performances, running in 5Ks, and playing with his kitten, Piper.