Lizbeth Hingst is a hospitalist.
I see you, COVID. I see you in the hospitals each day. I don on my surgical cap, scrubs, goggles, N95 mask, and gown. Are you there?
I see you in the scared eyes of my patients, in their tears, and in their regrets.
I see you in their cough, gasps for air, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and muscle aches.
I see you when they cannot smell or taste.
I see you when they have …
In her hospital bed, she sat there confused as to what was buzzing around her. Rita was 96 years old and in the throes of dementia and agitation. As her physician assigned to her that week, I remember walking into her room and noticed her elderly husband brushing her hair w an unsteady hand and feeding her chocolates.
“My sweetie loves chocolates,” he states.
Rita, agitated, grabs his arm and throws it …
I can smell the wafting aroma of frying onions and tomatoes as I am upstairs, just waking for the day. I am 10 years old, and these aromas are the staple of my childhood. It brings back memories of home. I walk downstairs and see my dad stirring the tomatoes and onions in the frying pan, dancing and singing: “I am cooking for my kid!” “Kid” is the term he …
She was a middle-aged female who was life-flighted from an outlying facility to the tertiary care hospital in which I worked. As she quickly rolled out of the elevator, I ran toward her and saw her blood pressure was tanking with her mentation fluctuating. My hair mindlessly placed in a ponytail, my blue scrubs wrinkled, and my nerves a jumbled mess, EMS briefly gave me an account of her history: …
It’s only been a week since we lost you, and I already miss you so very much. There are days when I feel like I’m OK, but there are nights I cry myself to sleep thinking of what life could have been for my second son or daughter.
Miscarriage: Losing a baby before reaching full term can be as devastating as losing a child at any age. My first experience with …
He sat there holding his wife’s hands and hugging her as tightly as he possibly could. Tears were streaming down her face, and she was vulnerable to the diagnosis I had just bestowed upon her. Cancer, the “C” letter word nobody wanted to hear, suddenly invaded the lives of this newly married couple.
Multiple thoughts were running through my mind before bestowing …
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