Contributing Writer
University of Florida
Melissa went to medical school at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso. She is currently a PGY-1 at the University of Florida Pediatrics Residency Program. She is not quite sure where she will end up after residency but has thought a lot about pursuing fellowship training in infectious disease. In her spare time, Melissa enjoys going to local parks and farmer’s markets with her husband and baby. She also enjoys reading sci-fi, writing letters to her awesome pen pal (her 8-year-old nephew), and Facetiming friends and family.
For the baby who’s been battered and bruised and for the adolescent already multiple times abused. For the children whose lives are so full of pain that they think their days are lived in vain. For parents overwhelmed with grief over a precious life that was far too brief. For the siblings who grow up too soon, as they watch how their loved ones are consumed. For the gaping hole that can never be filled, …
Wrinkly face and wonky head; I support your wobbly neck. No matter the emotion, you respond with a cry.
It was the most joyful of times. It was the most horrific of times. A week before my first child was born,
an act of terror occurred on the other side of the world.
Hello, come in, / and welcome to peds clinic! / My attention is on you / for the next 20 minutes.
Your mom gets tetanus (Tdap) / before you’re born, / Plus COVID and flu / are the norm.
My husband and I were pregnant with a child / Then we found out something wild. / I am a carrier of SMA / And this affects me in almost no way.
Don’t you forget the first day of life, / You had turned upside down / And a tight slap upon your backside / Even to get you to breathe!
End-stage starvation is rare, but devastating. After exhausting its fat stores, the body breaks down its organs for energy: muscle, liver, kidney and finally the heart. The blood itself becomes toxic, in a dangerously narrow balance between brain death and cardiac arrest. As a pediatrician, I wish to protect all children from these symptoms. But as an American taxpayer, I worry about my contribution to the starvation of children in Yemen. President Biden recently announced …
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.
“Every one of these patients should terrify you,” the fellow said. I thought he was just being dramatic.
Thinking back to January 2020, I recalled the whispers throughout the hospital of the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States, mere minutes from my home institution. Aside from my perspective as a pediatrician, I was also forced to confront my own anxieties regarding exposure to this virus as an adult living with repaired congenital heart disease.
Today, I made a two-year-old cry because I wanted to look into his eyes to rule out vision-threatening disease. The light was too bright, the lens was too close, and the attention was too much.
Peer Reviewer Emeritus
Geisinger Eye Institute
Jonathan Tsui is currently an ophthalmology resident at Geisinger Eye Institute in Danville, PA. He studied finance at Rutgers Business School as an undergraduate and then continued on at Rutgers to obtain his medical degree. Prior to starting ophthalmology residency, he completed his preliminary year in medicine at University of California, Irvine. His career interests include cataract surgery and global health. Today, when Jonathan is not operating or seeing patients he can be found at the gym, spending time with family, or backpacking abroad.
