Dear Reader,
This year, we invited faculty members to submit stories written in conversation with another. Drs. Brenner and Volden responded with their two-part poem, “Respite in the Garden,” in which Dr. Volden asks, “How vulnerable do you want to be?” Her question resonates throughout this issue.
In “Ready … Set … ,” Dr. Kobernick fears for a critically injured patient only to be surprised later when the boy is “Smiling. Laughing. Normal.” Dr. Raman is alarmed in “The Fall.” After sharing “grim statistics” with a family member, he is caught off guard by her “startlingly normal voice.” In “Initial Management of Acute Chronic Imposter Syndrome,” Dr. Drum reminds himself, “Believe the patient who tells you that you made a difference.”
Balancing the competing demands of medicine and motherhood reveals a different vulnerability. In “Mother,” Dr. Tuan’s daughter suggests, “‘ Mommy, work at my school instead so we can always be together.'” For Dr. Hagen, the tension becomes surreal in “Code Sesame.” In “School,” a wry reflection on the pandemic, Dr. Hemond is the one schooled by her children. As if to answer these physicians, Dr. Glasgow and her daughter, Sommer, a prospective medical student, offer hope and reassurance in their tandem stories.
Ever grateful for family and friends, Dr. Patel still wonders, “Where is my center?” We hope you find within these pages space to ponder vulnerabilities often silenced in medicine, so that you can, in the words of Dr. Brenner, “remember ourselves as we share stories that restore and guide us.”
The Editors
Fall 2022