Page 11 - Grad Memories

Nathaniel "Shmug" Meadow, MD

Future Plans:
Hospitalist at University of Chicago

Favorite Memory of Residency:
I had this patient on gen med, old guy who was in a slow process of dying.
Headed towards sub- acute rehab type of thing, all acute things resolved
pretty quickly. We'd talk to his kids from time to time, and they'd
alternate visiting/staying with him at his home (needed 24 hour care), but
he also still had his wife who was always with him in the hospital. She was
a quirky woman who was a Round Killing Talker, often with some repeats
of the stories she already told. So I would tend to cut her off in the
morning and tell her I'd come back on the afternoon to chat.

So I'm back in the afternoon and she pulls me into the hallway (I thought
pretty unnecessary as the patient wasn't processing much) and starts
strolling the halls with me. We walk to the main area on 3 then turn
around and go back to the end of the hall. She's been talking the whole
time, and then she gets to why she's walking with me. She wants to tell me
one of her favorite poems, and so she did:
I walked a mile with pleasure. We chatted all the way. But never did I learn a
thing for all she had to say.
I walked a mile with sorrow. Never a word said she. But oh the things I
learned from her that mile she walked with me.

I found that poem pertinent and powerful. I wrote it down right then while
walking with her. It applies so deeply for hospitalized people, who often
sit in silence due to illness, weakness, fear. And their family is often right
beside them, joining them in that silence, but still sharing the experience
and learning about their loved one. I've tried to keep it in mind for my
own experiences. It was a poem I thought about a lot while hanging in the
hospital with my dad, and I read it aloud at his funeral.

We are fortunate to work in a field that has impact on others and where life
changing events occur. They're not always the acute traumas, they can be
occur over a period of time. On reflection, even those illnesses whose
course takes years to play out, feel like a singular event, an era of one's life
that changes you.