I honestly wish that I could write this story in French, the language in which most of the action happened. My French language skills, while certainly functional in a medical setting, were eroded by my eight years in Toronto. My written French, never particularly strong, is not up to the task of being grammatical at the same time as being… Read More »A visit from the Office de la langue française
I pressed on the woman’s belly and the pads beneath her filled up with blood and clots, again. The uterus hardened briefly and then slowly rose and softened under my hand. I had gone through the protocol. The nurse, resident and obstetrician and I worked efficiently together, using drugs and fluids. I was hesitating to do what I needed to… Read More »An act of kindness
My Auntie Doris is my father’s sister and one of the great Jewish cooks of our time. Now at 96-years-old she no longer uses the stove, but when I was a child in the early 1960s and a teenager in the ’70s, my aunt was famous for her holiday cooking and baking. We would arrive at Auntie Doris and Uncle… Read More »Turkish Delight rolls
At age nineteen I volunteered at the Montreal Youth Clinic on Ste Famille St. in Montreal. I did screening and counseling for young people who came to the clinic for healthcare. I would discuss contraception, STIs, and other issues. Sometimes I would translate, often I would chaperone the moonlighting residents who made up the majority of our medical staff during… Read More »A Christmas ghost story
Three and a half year-old Emma is climbing up the hill at the park. In her rainbow striped shirt and white hat, she marches to the wading pool. It is a hot day in May and we find that the pool is empty. She looks at me with deep disappointment, then her face takes on its bulldog expression. “Where is… Read More »Passing the family medicine torch from mother to daughter
These days I wake up early, often by 5:30 a.m. I am eating yogurt and berries at 6 a.m. when the phone rings. “Your patient came back. She’s fully dilated. Do you want to come in?” I think for a moment. It is Rosh Hashanah after all. I want to go to synagogue, but I have been waiting for this… Read More »New year, old stories
Watching the erosion of reproductive rights now happening in the United States makes me fear that all those rights we fought so hard for when I was young could just be whisked away and we could find ourselves back again where the rights of women and the freedoms of LGBTQ+ people are denied. When I was a medical student back… Read More »Things that could fall apart
In my long and winding journey as a physician there have been a few books and papers that have really informed or changed how I interact with patients. Patient Centered Medicine, by Stewart et al, is one such book. And the first chapter of Balint’s The Doctor the Patient and his Illness, when he speaks about how true healing can only happen when… Read More »Medical Student Disease changes with age, but doesn’t disappear
“You seem discouraged,” my sister said to me one day, as we were watching the world go by from a terrace restaurant on Rue St. Laurent. “You usually like your work, but recently you are complaining a lot.” I sighed. Sometimes having a sister who knows you so well can be difficult. She was right, as usual. The job has… Read More »You seem discouraged
Sharifa is someone who defies pigeonholes. Born in a country which does not encourage the education of women, she went to university and became and engineer. Told she was too fat and unattractive, she became a passionate and disciplined athlete. Told her educational and professional status would make her unfit for marriage, she found a man who wholeheartedly supported and… Read More »A box of dates