Tears For Company
She had her head bowed over her sleeping newborn, and her perfect plaits of braids were blanketing her shoulders, cascading calmly despite the insurmountable turmoil clearly manifesting on her face.
She had her head bowed over her sleeping newborn, and her perfect plaits of braids were blanketing her shoulders, cascading calmly despite the insurmountable turmoil clearly manifesting on her face.
In September 2020, I started to volunteer as a health educator in sexual and reproductive health and rights with mobile clinics of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, reaching marginalized communities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). I worked in the villages of two cities in the West Bank — Jenin and Qalqilya.
Our successes are born out of / The communities that uplifted us. / The teachers that pushed us.
Uppgivenhetssyndrom, also termed resignation syndrome, is a distressing ailment in which patients — often young children — completely withdraw from the activities of daily life. With no underlying neurological or physical disease, these patients lose the will to live, essentially becoming apathetic.
I imagine her mother / Squeezing daughter’s limp hand / Silent tears
When I first started learning how to write SOAP notes, I was under the impression they would serve as objective documents to detail the medical history and current health problems experienced by patients It seemed these notes were to be created by — and for — clinicians. I now realize this perception could not be more wrong.
Every town — / We’ll say it could be any town, / until it has affected every town
Last year, I walked into a big hospital room towards the tiny NICU bed with a tiny baby in his space helmet. The moment he came out of that helmet, which was pumping in 100% oxygen, he would start deteriorating.
“You know, not all of us can be small,” the patient, a well-appearing woman in moderate anxious distress, said as she motioned with her hands and rolled her eyes towards me. “It’s disgusting,” she added.
Longitudinal community service presents health trainees with clear benefits including development of communication and interpersonal skills, understanding how to teach and insight into community level issues and personal well being.
Uvalde / I hear the cries of children as they play at the school across the street / They are joyful and exuberant as they play in the Texas heat / unaware of the fear that will soon be unleashed
Like many medical students, I am familiar with the antiparasitic medication ivermectin, a common drug taught in medical school. Ivermectin became an unexpected subject in the COVID-19 pandemic. However, after seeing a patient in the clinic taking ivermectin as an alternative to vaccination, the news hit differently.