Scar
His mother asks whether or not there will be a scar. I tell her yes. We’ll do our best to make it small, but there will be a scar.
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Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Columbia-New York Presbyterian Hospital
Jake Prigoff is originally from Roslyn, New York. He received his undergraduate degree from The University of Michigan and his medical degree from The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is currently a General Surgery Resident at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. His primary career focus is on oncologic surgery, but his interests also include Public Health and the epidemic of gun violence in America.
To Preside
Shrouded in a plastic blanket / Raising the temperature of your / Frail limbs and famished core
The Masters of Patchwork
Come one, come all, to the emergency room / It’s one a.m., and the rashes are in bloom
Santa Claus Pajamas
Tommy became my patient about halfway through my PICU rotation. He arrived as a transfer from an outside hospital due to concern for liver failure, and on a morning when we already had four admissions, he became another checkbox on my to-do list.
Two Years Post the Match: A PGY-2 Story
I had such difficulty explaining to my family and friends not in medicine the concept of the match. I finally settled on a lottery-Bachelor fusion to explain it. Just replace the aspiring lovers with program directors and medical students, and roses with Match Day letters.
My Thoughts on Intern Year, Expressed Through a History & Physical
My early idea of what it meant to be a intern came from a combination of pop culture physician idols (i.e. ER) and a handful of actual medical experiences. A dive headfirst from a shopping cart at young age earned me my first trip to the emergency room.
On Being a Doctor
With just a few months left of residency, I’ve started to pay a lot more attention to what is going on around me. I’m realizing what a unique perspective we have as housestaff physicians. The best way for me to explain what I mean is with this story of one particularly busy shift in the ER.
Surviving Residency: 5 Tips You Didn’t Know You Already Knew
Residency is hard. Anyone who tells you differently needs a stat GI consult because they’re full of it. You will be tired physically, mentally, and emotionally, regardless of what specialty you enter.
The Intern
From the moment I set foot in the hospital as an intern on June 24, 2016 at 4:55 a.m. to the present as I write this reflection, my life feels as though it were playing in fast forward. It is hard to believe Match Day was almost a year ago.
Perfection, Community, Gratitude: What Residency Has Taught Me So Far
March 18, 2016. I had been anticipating this day for months and I could not believe that it had finally arrived. I woke up that morning, sat on my couch, and began to journal as I do pretty much every day.
Being There: A Reflection by a Father and Family Medicine Intern
“Daddy, time to wake up! It is morning time!” I open my eyes to our four-year-old daughter at the foot of the bed smiling, her hair meticulously braided. I get up and wake her younger brother from his crib and carry him downstairs. The baby is still sleeping.
Parking Lot Epiphany: My First Patient as a Physician
“Bunny!” my mom shouted from the foot of the steps, hurrying me out of bed the morning after my medical school graduation. She used the childhood nickname that came from my brother who was unable to pronounce “Dominic” as a toddler, a name that had stuck well into adulthood.
Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Dominic Decker is an English major at heart now training in internal medicine. He completed a master's degree in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University, attended the University of Minnesota Medical School, and is in residency at Brown University.