Milwaukee County General

Abstract

Narrative Matters Health AffairsVol. 34, No. 10: Variety Issue NARRATIVE MATTERSMilwaukee County GeneralDeborah Fries Affiliations Deborah Fries ( [email protected] ) teaches online writing courses to health care professionals and people dealing with serious illnesses through The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is a contributor to the website “Making Sense of Alzheimers.” Fries is the author of Various Modes of Departure and The Bright Field of Everything . PUBLISHED:October 2015Free Accesshttps://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2015.0779AboutSectionsView PDFPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsDownload Exhibits TOPICSPatientsDiseasesMedical educationHospitalsPhysiciansI can’t forget what I saw. Those years clerkingin medical illustration, even the doctors’ names danced: Gingrass, Bernhard, Pattillo, Kengis . We had to waltz with them: witness the head in a bucket,baby with no brain, dappled tongues thrust forwardin a Peutz–Jeghers’ family portrait. Ovarian cyst the size of a small pig. Hensley, Raab, Borkowf . One would deliver my daughter, another, makeme his—gently beckon me to the morgue to provemy mettle, quiz me on cause of death, send meblood-bright cockscomb when I returned to college.They were poor people, our subjects. We collectedtheir pathology and stony stares: mother and baby,skunk-striped by Waardenburg’s; modest teen missingan eye. Stacks of purple photomicrographs, ignoredmalignancies. Surgical film of objects withdrawn fromone man’s crowded stomach: twenty pens, pencils,dental pick, and ragged toothbrush. We labeled that videoDesk Set with a wink, his need to swallow already academic, his obdurate silence twirling surgeons in their white coats. Loading Comments... Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. DetailsExhibitsReferencesRelated Article Metrics History Published online 1 October 2015 Information Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc. PDF download