Contributing Writer
Emory School of Medicine
Aly is a 4th year medical student at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Born and raised in Berkeley, California, she traveled to the east coast to attend Williams College. She graduated from Williams in 2010 with a degree in sociology. Prior to moving to ATL for medical school, she worked as a research assistant for a pediatric oncologist in Boston. She is planning on going into pediatrics, and has an interest in palliative care. Her non-medical interests include swimming, weightlifting, cycling, and Trader Joes.
“There’s a great neuro exam in room 5147,” my resident said as I dropped my bag in the call room. “Why don’t you go check it out?” I clutched my reflex hammer in one hand and googled the components of a neuro exam with the other as I headed towards the stairwell.
Gloves first, then scalpel blades gathered, / instructor books and an atlas. / What yearning and churning my mind feels, / unsure what learning to expect.
A hospital bed rolled in. It was Marvin. His last walk. On rounds we would say, “Twenty-two-year-old with gunshot wound to the head. Waiting for organ donation.”
After hours of struggle, noise, / knife and clamp and lung flapping wetly / like a broken bird wing in an open chest, / there is this part, the dismantling.
“We kept him alive to let his family say goodbye, / and sometimes that’s the biggest victory.”
Telemedicine should never replace in-person care, especially in the patient-centric hospice environment, but when used appropriately it can provide benefits not found in any other care environment.
“Time of death: 12:26 p.m.” Hearing those words on the first day of my Intensive Care Unit (ICU) rotation was surreal when just a few hours ago we were discussing the patient’s status during rounds.
You tell me you’d like to be an engineer one day. You hesitate after the words “one day,” like you’re reconsidering the phrase. I want to tell you not to, but I can’t find the words.
Like an early Sunday morning in New York City or a football stadium the night before a game, it is a hospital on a holiday weekend. This is my first experience of how quickly peace can burst into bedlam in medicine.
The scent of illness, stifling and spoiled / Masked by antiseptics.
I had not yet guided a ‘goals of care’ discussion. This is the discussion that entails understanding a patient’s wishes regarding end of life care, and it is often in the context of determining what advanced medical interventions the patient might want. That day, my short white coat felt shorter, like it was yelling out to everyone I encountered that I had no idea what I was doing.
While I knew little about these patients at the beginning of the day, I always started out knowing one very important fact: they were already dead.
Physician Assistant Student Guest Writer
Eastern Virginia Medical School
Ashley Luebbers is a physician assistant student at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, VA. In 2011, she graduated from James Madison University with a Bachelor of Science in dietetics, and she obtained a Master of Science in nutrition and dietetics from Central Michigan University in 2016. In her free time, she enjoys traveling with friends and reading C.S. Lewis novels. After graduating in May 2019, Ashley plans to work in emergency medicine with a focus in pediatrics.
