The Room in the Corner
Still lungs. / Silent heart. / Time of death: 2:40.
Tag: death and dying
Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital
Dr. Jennifer Geller is a general surgery resident at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, PA. She completed medical school at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School with distinctions in bioethics and medical humanities and during that time served as both Managing Editor and later Editor-in-Chief of In-Training. She is a graduate of Brandeis University with majors in Biology and Chemistry. In her free time, Jennifer enjoys baking, hiking and spending time with friends and family.
Surviving Residency When Your Fiancé Has Cancer: Part 3
The second week of September was the epitome of emotional whiplash. Monday the 12th, we celebrated our one-year engagement anniversary in the ICU. We had gotten engaged in an apple orchard, so I brought in apple cider and cider donuts. She still wanted to keep fighting and didn’t want her doctors to give up on her. She was on four mcg/min of norepinephrine to keep her blood pressure up.
Surviving Residency When Your Fiancé Has Cancer: Part 2
I had just started my residency in Burlington, Vermont when she started having symptoms again. She was to receive her treatment in Rochester, New York, which meant we were apart most of the year. I had been planning to propose in October, but now all plans were out the window. Despite the fear that swelled inside, I made sure to propose before she started chemo, to show that I would be with her no matter what.
Surviving Residency When Your Fiancé Has Cancer: Part 1
Residency is hard. Anyone who has gone through it can attest to that. While I was getting intimately acquainted with this reality in August, 1.5 months into the first year of my internal medicine residency, my soon-to-be fiancé was diagnosed with cancer.
The Hug
There was a dark, empty space. / Stillness, / Where there should have been movement.
Where The Tulips Bloom
Her grip on my hand is tight. Almost as tight as the elastic on the oxygen mask stretched across her face, digging furrows into her thin, sallow skin.
Life // Death
A flicker on the screen of the heartbeat, the first glimpse of my baby, I cry at the possibility of new life // An empty ultrasound, no heartbeat, a young mom cries; discovery of death amidst life.
Sparkle Shoes
“Every one of these patients should terrify you,” the fellow said. I thought he was just being dramatic.
Early Palliative Care and End-of-Life Planning as a Primary Preventative Intervention During the COVID-19 Pandemic
The novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has drastically increased the number of critically ill and dying patients presenting for hospitalized management of dyspnea, acute respiratory failure and other serious complications. The emergence and spread of SARS-CoV-2 has created unprecedented demands on all avenues of inpatient hospitalist medicine. One of the many services in high demand includes palliative care, with increased need for complex end of life planning.
My Husband’s Death
My husband was a 53-year-old man who worked full-time as a mental health aide. He was a hardworking man, with shifts from 3:30pm to 12am, and was very dedicated to his patients. He was on the frontline caring for COVID-19 patients. I work as a nurse at the same hospital during the day shift.
Witness
This elderly yet jolly gentleman answers our unending questions about his physical health, but it is his question to us that makes me pause. Do I have time for a poem? This busy clinic day, I stop reflecting on why his heart stopped beating and instead what motivates his heart to beat in the first place.
Where I’m Meant To Be
As I enter rooms filled with aerosolized forms of the coronavirus, realizing that I am at high risk of catching this highly contagious disease, I set aside my fears to hold the hands of patients — strangers and friends, all alike. I love what I do.
Resident Physician Contributing Writer
New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center
Montreh Tavakkoli is a resident in internal medicine at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell. She obtained her master's degree in Biotechnology from Columbia University and her medical degree from UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. Her background is in cancer research, having contributed to the development of a leukemic stem cell directed therapy in acute myeloid leukemia as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Fellow at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She is starting her fellowship in hematology/oncology at the University of Pennsylvania in July.