SPOTLIGHT -
At the Monhegan Island General Store
I’m happy to be off the trail, out of the wind and salt spray, safe from the fog’s cold claw...
The Hang Gliders
Dead into a wall of wind, they cliff jump with parabolic wings curled over pilots cradled in goose down and canvas.
Naked Mole Rat
I’m glad we’re studying this one, a lusty, almost immortal guy living in his dark tunnels of love.
Über Coca
He didn’t notice snow falling in the Krankenhaus courtyard the night he fell in love. A mere intern, castrated by Jew-hating med school professors...
After Divorce Court
I drive west along the black granite bed of Cold River as it sweeps down the mountain. My best friend drives the same road east, the lies his wife told the judge trailing us...
The Stethoscope
Laennec was running late when he saw children send sounds through a wooden beam...
VIP Referral
When a health system honcho asks me to see his thirty-year-old son “for a little anxiety” I can only agree. He arrives with a girlfriend, the couple dressed like characters from an Armani ad...
The Fisherman
Tears track his leathered face like seawater spilled from a sinking hull...
Still Practicing
My penmanship sucks. So does my typing. I’ve been this way since seventh grade...
A Psychiatrist’s Diet
Looking out at a flat gray sea, I try to imagine the chasms in the ocean’s floor where lava laced with strontium pours...
Caring for the Patient
I want my patients to believe I consider Peabody’s advice before I see them, that I recognize our shared humanity...
Up in Smoke
He smoked trabucos, mild miniatures produced by the Austrian monopoly, but preferred Don Pedros and Reina Cubanos...
Looking Like a God
The trouble with looking like a God becomes clear after we learn to wear our mask of omnipotence, pretending to know the answers to questions...
A Lobsterman Looks at the Sea
His new hip healed in, we’re working on a bluff, talking doctors and health care reform as we shove a new propane tank into place...
A Curious Kind of Love
Sometimes when proposing a treatment plan, I flash to an image of my patient seated beside me on this orchard bench watching orioles court in May’s sharp sunlight...
Lazy Birder
Dawn is at five, but I sleep past nine, not caring if I miss a few warblers flying home for summer...
Hit by a Bus
That’s how he’d like to go, he tells me, not by this slow seeding of liver and spine, not with all the tears and long good-byes.
Sleeping Daughter
The Big Bad Wolf and Wicked Witch liked to creak the stairs by her bedroom door and wake her from dreams calling, “Daddy!”
Steel Against Steel
On the cracked macadam court in the shadow of The Castle on the Hill, below fake gun turrets built with bricks...
Talk Radio, 2 am
I’m driving home from the ER, not ready for sleep, eaten up by memories of my mistakes...
Motorcycle Racer
We’ve been meeting since his PSA spiked and he decided on surgery. Radiation finished, nerves nicked by the robot...
Extinction
After a managed care company calls me to be “a prescriber,” I recall The Book of Dinosaurs my grandfather gave me the day I turned seven.
It’s Always a Brain Tumor
It's always a brain tumor when I have a headache. “Don’t be crazy,” I tell myself, “You’re just inventing a doctor-mind catastrophe.”
Fifty Shrinks
Fifty Shrinks allows us to see ourselves through the sensitive eyes of a colleague and artist.
Practicing My Scales
When I learned my first scale at 45 I knew I would never rip loose and free like the pros who started as teenagers, when time didn’t matter and practicing was just another form of play.
How a Psychiatrist Writes a Poem
I begin by remembering my hours as a patient and Freud’s “Fundamental Rule”: Say Whatever Comes to Mind...
Lunch Break at a Residential School
When I’m hungry, I love to stroll past the campus barnyard and visit the colorful, caged characters who live, like me...
Psychiatrist Baseball Cards
I’d love to create a new set every year, our glossy portraits on one side, caduceus in the corner, honors, cure rates, and publications on the back...
Words Heal: Coping With Cancer
When a full-time writer's husband was diagnosed with cancer, she found writing poetry helped her cope. She guessed that others would, like her, find their experiences with cancer best expressed through poetry. So began The Cancer Poetry Project.
Data Point
Three years deep in despair, he’s swallowed every pill I prescribed...