I attended Professor Brian Hurwitz’s talk at the Singapore Medical Humanities Conference last week. He spoke about anecdotes — those small, personal stories that seem trivial at first, yet somehow stay with us longer than the data ever does. It struck me that so much of our life in medicine
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The patient was already in the cubicle when I arrived. Fifty-eight years old, cirrhosis, ascites, confusion — the ED notes had been written in the familiar clipped tones of medical shorthand. His sister stood at his bedside, anxious, hovering like someone who had already told this story many times that
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Some trips are itineraries. Others become gentle mirrors. This was the latter. When I boarded the plane to Vienna, I didn’t quite realise how much this trip would end up being a balm — to my weary body, and my quietly bruised heart. Over the last few years, life has
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The neuro-ICU was a frigid, stark place. The silence was punctuated by the relentless beeping of machines. The antiseptic scent was a constant reminder of the fortress-like walls that encased the patient’s stillness. Beep. Beep. Beep. As I entered I felt like an intruder stepping into a
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Jane Tan wears many hats — SingHealth staff, devoted mother, cancer warrior, and now a volunteer who gives back with her hands and heart. After her own cancer journey, Jane found healing not just in treatment, but in connection. Using simple crafts as a bridge, she reaches out to patients undergoing
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This song has been seven years in the making. Back in 2018, I wrote a poem for aspiring medical students about what it truly means to be a doctor. No holds barred. No sugar coating. But also an explanation of why, despite everything, I remained one. I titled it “Don’
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What happens when we start to question the stories we carry about our worth
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Film review
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Reconsidering Patient Centred Care: Between Autonomy and Abandonment By Alison Pilnick Emerald Publishing, 2022 I almost didn't pick up this book. The title felt like academic jargon, and honestly, I was expecting another dry critique of healthcare that would leave me feeling guilty about not being "patient-
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Teacher or villain-elle? Here comes another eager-eyed learner, She stutters as her glasses begin to mist, Wisdom or trauma: which will it be, Teacher? Now with beaded sweat and shy demeanour, She asks to examine the pulse at the wrist, Here comes another eager-eyed learner. With eyes
Keep reading →Personal essays from clinicians, nurses, allied health. The on-call you remember. The patient who stayed with you.
The view from the bed, the bedside, the waiting room. We especially want these — they matter the most.
Lyric, narrative, speculative, silly, mournful. Written on the back of a rounds sheet.
A teddy bear. A box of unopened tea. Write about one object and the story it holds.
Anything you want to look at carefully and tell us about.
A paragraph. A sketch. A single sentence on a post-it. The easiest place to start.
HEART started because medical humanities can sound like a closed club. We don't want to run that room. We want to run the pantry next door, where people come in, make a kopi, and tell you something they haven't been able to say all week.
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