Two Hundred and Nine Short Essays Later

  Here I am in Boston, on the eve of my very first writer’s conference, feeling a bit like an imposter.  After all, the extent of my writing so far has been this blog, apart from thousands of histories, physical exams and treatment plans over the last thirty-nine years since starting medical school.  It occurred… Continue reading Two Hundred and Nine Short Essays Later

An American Safari

I’ve always secretly envied families who served as hosts for AFS, the American Field Service, which promotes cultural exchange by bringing high school students from foreign countries here for a year, and by sending our own students around the world.  As a doctor-mom busy with the balancing act of raising her own three children while… Continue reading An American Safari

A True Story

As a child, I dreamed of going to Africa some day on safari.  Late at night I would drift to sleep hearing the imagined trumpeting of a bull elephant, and seeing visions of elegant giraffes moving like tall masted ships through the grasslands of the Serengeti behind my closed eyes.  I read voraciously—first children’s books… Continue reading A True Story

Get Your Kicks on Route 66

No one would ever call me a drama queen–at least, not in the figurative sense.  Not in the literal sense either, since never once in my sixty years have I ever tried out for the elementary school play, the high school musical, the college a capella groups or the fourth year medical student end of… Continue reading Get Your Kicks on Route 66

My First Day Off

I’ve rarely been a real risk taker when it comes to physical activity.   I’ve never jumped out of an airplane, rappelled down a mountainside, or skied in fresh powder after being dropped from a helicopter.  When I swim, I like my pool water warm, and when I ride, I like my horses elderly and as… Continue reading My First Day Off