Today, I hugged a stranger. I hugged him with the hope that I could lift some of this pain, with the hope that I could take on some of the burden of his hopelessness. And I felt my eyes well up as I thought of my patient — a young male with so much to live for. As I held this man, I felt his sobs slow to a whimper. I wiped my tears and walked away without saying one word, without looking at him in his eyes. I went to a nearby bathroom and sat on the floor. I needed time to think, to feel, to gather myself. After a few minutes, I washed my hands, washed my face, and walked back to the operating room to check on the patient. The chief resident had re-opened his chest, and was massaging his heart. “He lost pulses,” she said, as she motioned me to take over compressions. I pumped his heart in the palm of my hands — over and over again — to mimic life, but his heart lay still. Everyone went quiet. We bowed our heads in understanding. I stood behind as the team left to prepare for new cases. The air was warm and thick in the operating room as I cleaned his motionless body of blood. The nurse and I moved his body onto a stretcher — his bloody Tommy Hilfiger boxers remained on the operating room table. We worked together somberly and efficiently, all too well rehearsed. The phone rang — like an old, nasty alarm clock — and pierced the thick air. It was a nurse telling us that the family had arrived and wanted to see their son. We wheeled him to the recovery unit, and the nurses prepared the room with boxes of tissues and cups of water. I took one last look at him before I departed, and felt my eyes well up with indignant pain — another young victim of gun violence, taken too soon. As I left the room, there he was walking toward me, toward his son’s body — in his grey shirt and muddy boots. He took one look at my tearful eyes and embraced me. He pulled my head into his chest, and by the smell of my scrubs, he could tell that I had been working all day. He embraced me as I sobbed into his chest, leaving behind small little patches of hopelessness and pain. Today, I hugged a stranger.
— EDWIN ACEVEDO, MD Resident, Surgery
Pedagogy Scrubs, gloves, goggles, Gown draped around my body forming an insulating layer between mine and yours, Shielding me from your parts which are now so openly exposed. But what mental tools do I have to insulate myself against the ambiguity I feel when I invade you? When I wield my scalpel and peel back the tough flesh of your hand, I know not, whether I am fulfilling your Wish, whether I am stripping you of your Personhood, your Dignity, or whether I am simply inadequate, an amateur doing gross injustice to your complex Beauty. I have no insulating layer to protect me from the sadness I feel, when I see your lifeless body; the vessel of your humanity, from which there once radiated Light, joy, wisdom. No insulating sheath: I am just as vulnerable as you. Perhaps my vulnerability is preferable to desensitization, to indifference, to the absence of that very humanity that drives me to learn from you. Perhaps the piercing gaze of my eyes, my prying probe, searching your vessels, fibers, crevices, is giving you meaning, even in death — I can only hope that it does. It is certainly imbued with meaning for me, a privilege, a gift of the most intimate kind, the vessel of your life being preciously transferred to me, so that I can in turn help others. And while you have reminded me that my Fate is the same as yours, I am forever thankful for your presence, for your pedagogy, for your gift.
— KURT KOEHLER (MD Class of 2021)
SUMMER 2018 | TEMPLE HEALTH MAGAZINE |
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