INTIMA SPRING 2024 | NON-FICTION

Click on the title of the essay to read

A Nice Shade of Lipstick | Julie Sumner

‘Keeping up appearances’ is an old-fashioned way of describing the rituals performed during adversity. One such ritual: Applying just the right shade of lip color, as one critical care clinician describes.

Another Day of Childhood | Amanda Ford

Parenting presents quandaries, especially when living with pain.

Contents Have Shifted | Kristin Graziano

Navigating long-distance care for a parent helps a clinician come to terms with the past and the present.

Dandelions | Julia Michie Bruckner

Children and gardens grow at their own pace, teaching close observers the poetry of the wild earth.

Dying at Home | Jen Baker-Porazinski

Attending a longtime patient with patience and fortitude makes a difference in an empathetic practice.

First Call | Nancy Lewis

Tale of the transplant: How a day unspools while waiting for a life-changing surgery.

How to Visit the Personal Care Home | Ann Green

Game plans provide a structure for spending a day with a parent who may not remember if you’re a sibling or an offspring but knows she likes dogs and donuts.

Invisible Wounds | Yona Feit

Witnessing a grandmother’s slow by steady memory loss allows a granddaughter to hold on to what remains.

Landmines | Evelyn Potochny

As a medical officer in the United States Navy, you face the possibility of injuries and death—literally and emotionally.

Missed Connections, Distant Places | Niharika Sathe

During the pandemic, telemedicine brought doctors and patients together while the vaccine sometimes kept them apart.

Partial Detachment | Davida Pines

It’s often hard to see clearly or know how to respond to a medical condition when Dad is a vocabulary purist.

Physics and Big Lips | Malavika Eby

Even a mother finds it impossible to smile when the town orthodontist comes up with an implausible explanation when asked a simple question.

Room 4512 | Suzanne Travis

Snow wishes and vein troubles: a funny-sad tale of the patient who copes with life and death as it comes at him remembered by a clinician who lived it too.

Sisters Under the Skin | Carol Scott-Conner

Who do you tell about your diagnosis when you’re a doctor treating exactly that condition? An esteemed breast cancer surgeon offers a reflection, pinpointing the choices made..

Take a Deep Breath | Sheethal Gloria Oommen

"Listening—not just to the complaints patients have, but the context their disease evolved in—makes a great deal of difference to the care we can provide and the level of trust and comfort they have in us.” It’s just one of many lessons from a clinician growing up with asthma in different countries and healing cultures.

Toe to Toe | Elizabeth Mitchell

The last moments with a parent include new anatomical discoveries and a surprising closeness.