Recently I discovered an old trove of writings and poems I created in the early days of my family doctoring days. They survived on the hard drive of an old computer. I’m going to share some from the vault, sprinkled among my present articles.
Including residency, I’ve been practicing for about 23 years now. Writing is way to process my experiences, to master information, to reflect upon the dignity and lives of people, and to reckon with the complicated art and unwieldy magic we try to harness in medicine.
I used to write more, but then took a ten year break before starting Examined. Being present as a new father, continuing to practice primary care, being a husband/family member/friend, trying to fix a house, fold laundry, to get the minimum sleep and exercise a body needs, all while sharing in never-ending domestic chores left little time to write. But not writing degraded my personhood, my spirit, and my health. I’m happy that I forced myself to get back into it, even if I’ve focused a bit more on presenting medical topics over the literary or poetic. And yet I do try to sprinkle in some happy and human posts along the way.
And so I’m going to drop a few of my old writings in here as I sift through them on that old hard drive. I hope this does not come off as pretentious, or that I embarrass myself by sharing bad poetry. But I think that at its best family medicine combines clinical skills and medical knowledge with a deep and abiding compassion for patients as people. If we can view life as a heroic journey through exhilarating joys and undeserved suffering, with the poetry of humdrum moments in between, perhaps we can craft a narrative that fashions order among the chaos; meaning amid the absurd.
OK, here’s an old poem. Enjoy your weekend :)
~Ryan
Another
It was not a violent death
of flesh carved or burned.
Nor was his life drawn short
by hunger, malice, or disease.
In the end his life was
laid down
like white clothing
in the ancient, moving river,
scrubbed clean by a woman's brown hands,
the same brown hands
that yesterday lifted spoonfuls
of applesauce and amlodipine.
I was his doctor of five visits
and two and half years.
His voice was wind over river rushes,
his jaw floating proudly with its remaining teeth.
The century stored in his mind,
with his moments of greatness,
smooth rocks in the river's bed.
He never asked much of me,
never demanded I rescue him
from the brackish waters,
the rising of the tide.
Rather he seemed to enjoy
my fumbling presence,
the care I aimed to give.
Of course he knew
that I was his last doctor,
the man who would one day
pause
in his busy day
to contemplate the passing clouds,
the great moon in the midday sky,
in the moment I learned of his death.
the kind of person I would like to have known
I'm glad you have started sharing your poems, and this one is touching in its connections to nature (and the symbolism of rushing water passing by rushes and over the river rocks) and in your compassion for the elderly patient who knew death was near. I'm sure your presence, however, was not fumbling.