Editor's note: This spring, Health Affairs held its first ever poetry contest. Three winning poems were published in the journal. We're also featuring some of our other favorites on the Blog throughout the month of October.
Operating Room Report (or: Uses of the Passive Voice)
I. What Dr. X Wrote
The patient
was consented, told
the complications,
risks, benefits, alternatives.
The patient
was brought to the room,
prepped and draped
in sterile fashion.
Upon entering the cavity,
a large amount of blood
was noted
the patient
at that moment, became
unstable.
No distal pulses detected.
II. What the Patient Remembers
"You have to remove your ring," the nurse said.
I told her my dream last night waking up mid-
incision. She promised
vigilance.
There were nine blue gowns floating in the room,
they wore blue caps and masks,
unwrapped silver instruments,
touched machines that sounded like oceans and traffic.
"Think of it like a vacation," one said,
fitting mask to mouth.
"Where do you want to go?"
– Micaela Mascialino
Slow Worked Sums
For 45 years my patient
taught advanced mathematics
at an elite prep school
where everyone went on to med school
and nobody sounded like me.
Diagnosis: COPD, Congestive Heart Failure
She's not circling the drain, yet,
but we can see there from here.
Also relevant: a daughter, most determined
every problem has a solution.
Across her dying mother, we work our sums.
She offers up interventions,
ever more invasive, ever more extreme.
I counter with the costs her mother will pay:
Recovery slow and painful, if it happens at all.
Our work is checked most thoroughly
and then the teacher nods.
"I'm sure the doctor knows best, dear."
"We'll see about that," her daughter snaps.
"I'm going to have you seen by an American."
-Cindy Potts
from Health Affairs Blog http://ift.tt/1P16KJ3
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