You made it, mama! I’m so proud of you! It’s 4am, quiet and calm as you slip silently into the future. No fanfare No weeping and wailing Just you and I in peaceful silence punctuated by your last ‘Ah-Ah’ gently calling out before expiring. Was that your
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It was early on a Sunday morning. A feisty grey-haired elderly lady approached my pharmacy counter, wanting to collect medication for her husband who had just been discharged. I checked the electronic prescription system and informed her, “M’am, your husband’s discharge medication is not ready yet. I
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Trigger Warning: This post touches on themes of suicide and loss. Please stop reading if you're not comfortable with this topic. I can only imagine The pain your mother felt When she saw you Her beautiful baby girl With porcelain skin Now a young lady Whom she knew
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Last week, I shared a post breaking down the biopsychosocial model—you know, the one that encourages us to treat patients as whole humans, not just walking diseases. The feedback? A lot of “Yes, Vic, it sounds all fine and dandy, but how do I actually do this in real
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Modern healthcare is moving at lightning speed. With clinic consultations that sometimes feel shorter than a Netflix intro, we’re squeezing diagnosis into ever-tighter timeframes. Doctors, overwhelmed by tight schedules, often rely heavily on diagnostic tests to guide their decisions. And while those tests are incredible for revealing structural
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There was a woman who was unmarried and didn’t have many visitors. I was asked to “help her with her pain and swelling.” When I went to visit her, a nurse warned me that she was difficult to engage. I thought, “Of course she’s difficult to engage; it’
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Behind those scrubs Zipping from one room to the next From tragic to devastating My scrubs reminding me that Their sorrow is not supposed to be Mine. Speaking with one family to the next From devastated to desperate Their tears reminding me that My sorrow is nothing compared to Theirs.
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The sun is a disorienting halo, the skies are bluer than most days in July, and 103 year old Mr. H won’t see it. According to his helper, he will only see the last wisps of amber sunset disappearing into the nighttime when he awakens for just three hours
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The concept of empathy has been swirling around in my head ever since a quiet afternoon at my parents’ house, where a simple ad on TV caught my attention. Believe it or not, TV still exists—yes, even with ads! It was part of a campaign by the Health Promotion
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Why We Need to Listen, Not Just Hear
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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