Moving into Compassion, One Small Moment at a Time by anesthesiologist Molly McCormick

I think about time a lot now. My days are ruled by schedules and cases and meetings, and I spend much of my day reacting to the pressures of the unrelenting sweep of the second hand as it moves around turning into minutes and hours, never slow enough for me to accomplish everything I need to do.

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Wisdom of the Ages: A Surgeon's Reflections on Writing, Vocation and Satisfying Endings

As I was creating Hal Winters, the character at the center of my short story, “Old Scrubs,” (Spring 2024 Intima) I imagined a rumpled, gray-haired, and unflappable older male surgeon who has seen it all. He heads to the hospital every day, goes through the motions and gets his work done without fanfare or fireworks. He hasn’t felt the spark of “why” he went into medicine for years but, as long as he remembers the “how,” he will keep plowing the same furrow.

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The Luxury of Walking Away: An MS4 meditates on time, isolation and the comforts of home

A medical student contemplates her roles as a physician-in-training and learns to appreciate the privilege she possesses—unlike her patients—in walking away from the clinical space.

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Exploring End-of-Life themes in "Nay Nay's Rebirth," a short story by Sara Lynne Wright

A retired surgeon reflects on a short story published in this journal—and in doing so, also contemplates how a comfortable and humane death can be fulfilled at the end of life.

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