Blog
Video
Author(s):
"Fifteen seconds, thirty, a minute of silence, sweat weeps from the intern’s forehead..."
Any Good Poem
Richard Berlin, MD, shares his poem "The Hotseat," about a time in which his hospital’s chief of staff grilled and humiliated a sleep deprived intern in front of the entire group of house staff and medical students.
The Hotseat
O700 and thirty housestaff collapse
like shipwreck survivors.
After 24 sleepless hours
of children renounced by Hygeia,
our eyes are drowned in shadow.
A few nod before he enters
ruddy-faced, rested,
white coat starched and spotless:
Dr. Harry, Chief of the mecca,
diagnostic wizard, the power
who can crush careers with a word.
He slaps a chest film on the light box
and hooks a bleary intern:
Tell me, doctor,
what is the shape of this child’s ears?
Fifteen seconds, thirty, a minute of silence,
sweat weeps from the intern’s forehead.
Harry scorches him with questions
and solves the riddle like Aesculapius,
even kneads the intern’s shoulders
as if soothing a bruise.
We curse him all day, stay awake
all night to earn his love,
and when we descend to Radiology
with our own tame students, we slap
a film on the light box and raise
their first beads of sweat.
Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 27 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is an instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.
Receive trusted psychiatric news, expert analysis, and clinical insights — subscribe today to support your practice and your patients.