The echo of Mother’s Day still lingers—soft, tender, and complex.
Time rushes forward, but emotions unfold on their own schedule. That’s why we’re sharing this collection now, in the quiet that follows the celebration—when reflection can settle in more gently.
Every mother-child relationship tells
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I was randomly shown this American news YouTube video the other day—you know, the kind with dramatic lighting and slightly-too-loud piano music in the background—and I almost scrolled past. I almost skipped it, but something made me stop. It was about a Stanford doctor, Bryant Lin,
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Scanning the notes on the Monday morning before ward rounds, I had a foreshadowing that this particular family was going to be challenging to speak to- multiple family communication notes over the weekend, documenting the medical team’s repeated attempts to explain to the family what was happening to their
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I saw you, as a baby,
Wrapped and swaddled in a coat of darkness
Helpless, unable to fend for yourself
Desperate cries were all you could harness
I saw you, as a baby,
Who had done nothing to deserve this plight
Scared, scarred, shaken
Unequipped to fight or take flight
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I first met Associate Professor Cheong Pak Yean when I was a medical student, assigned to shadow a GP for my clinical attachment. I was fortunate beyond measure that it was him – the same family doctor my parents had taken me to when I was sick as a teenager. Little
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Yesterday I saw
Amidst a sea of grey on metal frames
Sharp words and tender actions
A gruff growl to stop her kicking
Shoes taken off as gently as a slipper
Mother, he spits but softer glances
Her tremors encased in his calloused hands
The cough racks through her question
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“Listening is talking for him; there’s an eloquence to this kind of attentiveness; it’s rare.”
― Abraham Verghese, The Covenant of Water
All clinicians experience from time to time what we call the “difficult patient.” For just a moment, as you read those words, reflect on what arises within
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I looked at my patient’s wife this morning, crying, and felt I was witnessing a beautiful sadness. When the husband first came in with a stroke six weeks ago, I remembered the wife crying helplessly. Both of them, in their 80s, were very loving, and were termed “Romeo and
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Watching Noah Wyle on screen in an ER is like welcoming back an old friend, except now , it is not set in Cook county General Hospital, Chicago, but the “The Pitt” an emergency room in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. He is now more jaded, and he has aged.
As an Emergency Physician,
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Back in my day
We did 36 hour shifts
Came back the next morning
Traced old notes, retrieved
Survived 8 calls per month
We did all the ECGs
Had 40 patients to round
Transcribed medication lists
We pushed stainless steel trolleys
piled up with patient files
After ordering antibiotics
We
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