Resident Physician Contributing Writer
SUNY Downstate Medical Center
Gali is a second-year psychiatry resident at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. She is currently working to provide and improve mental health services for underprivileged communities in Brooklyn. She is passionate about reducing the stigma surrounding psychiatry, as well as racial and gender inequalities in health care.
The first time I saw her on the ward, I was instantly curious. There was something so innocent about her; she looked younger than her age, like a little girl. She was barefoot and had uncut, unkempt hair, as if she had accidentally wandered in from a different time period.
“Code Blue, lobby bathroom,” the loudspeaker goes off. For a second we all look up from our workroom computer screens. A seasoned resident shrugs his shoulders and we share a knowing look.
The patient who said I was a “round-eye” and thus not a slant-eye / The patient who said in the elevator that he knows Chinese: “ching, chang, chong”
The recent confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court raises concern about the future of reproductive health, particularly access to abortion and affordable contraception. Although his impact on reproductive rights is to be determined, those who will be disproportionately impacted by further compromise of reproductive rights will always be the most vulnerable women among us. This includes the uninsured, poor, and incarcerated.
The baby’s hat is bright orange, knit with vertical ribbing to mimic a pumpkin’s ridges, and topped with a tiny green stem. The cheeks below it bulge in perfect crescents. I turn to the mother to ask if she made the hat herself. Her eyes don’t leave the muted cartoons bouncing across the television screen as she mumbles, “The nurse or someone gave it to her.”
Nine months of sabbatical / I meet them in the airport lobby / of the newborn nursery.
For children who have been reunited with their parents, though, the damage may have already been done. Let’s discuss some of the key consequences associated with parental-child separation in detail, starting with the notion of toxic stress.
twenty-two nights you kept me awake. i counted / them last night, counted them as i lay on my bed with / eyes propped open, trying everything i could to
A quiet, frail, emaciated gentleman in his 60s who was dying of cancer. What made him different was that he was shackled to the bed, one arm and one leg bound to the bed of a barren room, lit only by the pale blue light from the window that cast the silhouette of bars on the floor. This was the prison unit.
The hospital is a stage and rounding is the show. It’s a daily performance, a dance of sorts, that takes place each morning on the floors. The performers congregate outside a patient room.
He pulled his chair up to the desk and flipped open his laptop. The young doctor, with thirteen years of pre-collegiate preparatory schooling, four years of college work, and a final four additional years of relevant medical education underneath his belt, attempted to yawn away exhaustion and scrolled through the patient list for the day.
I am doing everything to make this one last. I was dumb before. This is a second chance and I have to do it right this time. You know no one gets a third. I have a new job, I am finally getting back on my feet. So I have had to miss a few days. She says she understands, but I am not so sure.
Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Boston Medical Center
Syed is a medicine resident who is interested in health policy and health administration. He primarily looks at diversity and inclusion and leveraging them to create a medical workforce that can provide higher quality and better access to care for uninsured and underinsured populations. Syed wants to work on pipeline programs and on recruitment, retention and promotion of underrepresented minorities in medicine and also on creating medical school and residency curriculum that frames medical education in a social justice contest and addresses the intersection of race, sex and gender and medical sciences.
