The Constant Carer
An insight into caring within marriage
Doctors in the Movies
A humorous comparison between historical and contemporary models of consultation and home-visit
False Hope
The complexities of diagnosis and prognosis following a sudden bereavement
Distance
Poignant musings about the student’s younger sister and potentially diminishing bonds
Touch
A dying elderly man being comforted by his wife at his hospital bedside – discussion around withholding further medical intervention
Some Kind of Miracle
Narrative from the perspective of a child about her terminally-ill mother coming home from hospital for Xmas, then remaining in remission for several years
We Do Not Yet See Clearly But Hope is Gold
An evocative narrative, taking a universal approach to explore the role of hope within terminal illness
I Can Only Hope
The desire to maintain heart-felt life-values across time
Unpredictable
‘There will always be shadows on the land ..’ the dynamic balance between health and illness
My First Patient
Soldier confronted by desperate parents giving his water bottle to their child
The Truth
After visiting a children’s cancer-ward in Malaysia – the author speculates about ‘the gateway between life and death’
My Experience of the Dissection Room
A searingly honest account of a student’s attempts to make the transition from individuals to educational cadavers
Paranoia
Figures carrying ‘secret’ health issues
Life in the Glasshouse
A terminally ill patient bodily connected to various machinery processes being on the threshold between life and death
The Window to the Patient
A celebration of the uniqueness of each individual
Homonymous Hemianopia
Humorous poem about the impact of a stroke and the daily challenges of living with only seeing half of your immediate environment
Trapped
Prose from the viewpoint of young girl with her mother in consultation -unable to get word in edgewise
Disabled Mind
A teenager with a cleanliness phobia, perpetual hand-cleaning, turns inwards
Old Addicts
Poem about the precariousness of drug addiction
Postnatal Depression
Powerful image and poem describing the agonizing physical and emotional impact of a traumatic childbirth
The Empathetic Doctor
Composite figure questioning assumptions and identification from cultural/social/gendered/racial and ageist perspectives
It’s all in the genes
A family’s challenges around the acceptance and perceptions of their daughter living with Downs Syndrome
No one
A poetic processing of living with OCD
Face Value
Prose about a young medic feeling he had connected with a patient yet finding her case-notes revealed a very different story
Lady With Pink Hair
Young mother tragically contracting severe neurological condition during clinical treatment and deteriorating rapidly
Beyond Appearances
A student’s observation of a surgeon establishing clinical boundaries
How Can I Ever Forgive Myself?
Prose about a patient’s unbearable grief and guilt and a doctor’s support
Practise What You Preach
The hypocrisy of an authoritarian doctor with life-style issues lecturing on well-being
Real Symptoms
A challenging consultation with a dissatisfied, distraught patient
Helping Hands
Institutionalization and learned helplessness in hospital
Waking
Poignant narrative about a wife waking up next to frail and incapacitated husband
U.B.H.T Lost Property
A hospital-gowned patient at hospital desk – seeking his identity
The Patient
A bleak experience visiting a hospitalized friend – the complexities of mental health care
Life?
Concern regarding holistic care – review of a cocktail of medications and patient’s well-being and happiness in general
Pants
Poem about ‘strange privileges’ of doctors from the banal to the poignant clinical episodes
Caterpillar to Butterfly
Thoughts on how medical education is a form of ‘metamorphosis’
David
Challenging patient in residential care and student’s sense of failure in everyday interactions
New Glasses
Tough recognition of a grandparent’s emotional abuse, and perspectives around death and dying
Chasing the Bismarck
A narrative inspired by a sailor-patient’s adventures: then creative writing in medicine under scrutiny
Pandora’s Box
Auto-immune disorder wreaks emotional havoc for both the clinician-patient and his family
I am Like an Onion
Meeting an elderly lady with depression – haunted by her horrific childhood experiences in wartime Germany
Tolerant Farmer
A stoic farmer reluctant to visit his G.P.