Larry and Michelle

So, Larry graduated from high school last Wednesday (5/20/2015).  The graduation ceremony was pretty horrendous as Chicago was battling rain and wind and 39F temp that night...  Nonetheless, Larry will be heading to college in August.  It reminds me of August 2008 when Michelle was leaving for college.  She made an effort to get together with her little cousin Larry just a few days before she headed out to Boston. 

Picture 1 = Michelle and Larry at Herrick Lake, the place where Michelle wrote many of her essays and prepared for all her AP class tests -:).  August 2008

Picture 2 = Michelle and Larry during holiday 2014.  December 2014

 

Time really flies!! 

Lately, I've heard many incredible stories about the various amazing paths our hopeful, young kids are taking...  My friend's son is graduating from high school and moving from southern California to Connecticut for Yale; my friend's daughter, who just graduated from University of Michigan, is on a 7-week hiking journey on the Camino de Santiago trail in Europe; my friend's son, at age 20, has become a well-recognized entrepreneur and is living his big dreams in Silicon Valley; my niece Sherry will be attending an MBA program in Singapore and France next year; my little Michelle will start her 4th year med school career on Tuesday and will be going to Africa later this school year to help people who are really in need of medical attentions...

I am so thankful that our kids are all growing up in this country and have the opportunity AND freedom to choose what they love to do -- good for them!!!

I am also very thankful for the fact that even with grown-up kids, we, the parents, are still young and energetic -- good for us, and we will undoubtedly live our own dreams!!!    

Michelle's Gold Humanism Award

After spending 3 years in med school including one full year of clinical rotations, my little Michelle received the Gold Humanism Award.  The following is the 250-word essay required to receive the award.

Illness is a private place. As doctors, we ask for permission to enter into our patients’ moments of vulnerability so that we may try to help them. Sometimes, we barge into their discomforts, their grief, and their shame. In acknowledgment of this, I believe that the most important task that a physician must take on is that of bridging whatever gaps exists between herself and the patient – this, I think, is humanism.

Coming to Boston Medical Center, I knew that I would be working with a large underserved population consisting of people that had vastly different day-to-day struggles than I had had in my life. I knew that I could never fully experience the world as they did, but I wanted to be able to understand their realities as best I could. Starting early first year, I joined Outreach Van Project and Homeless Health Immersion Experience and spent hours just talking with people, listening to the challenges that they had come up against and how that resulted in financial insecurity, listening to the emotional struggles that they had to go through and how they come out of it at the end of every day.

Sometimes, just being there allows you to traverse the distance between doctor and patient. When you sense that a patient is fearful or anxious, it counts for a lot to just linger in the room a moment after the rest of the team has left and offer any honest reassurance that you might be able to give. When your patient has been in the hospital for 89 days, it counts for a lot to make sure that you take half an hour every day to wheel him outside into the sunshine. Intangibles such as these are best learned when mentored, and that is one way in which I intend to promote humanism at Boston University School of Medicine – I will be participating in an elective where I’ll be mentoring MS1s during their first venture into patient interactions. I hope to impress upon my fellow students the importance of doing things – however big or small – to let your patient know that you are right here beside them on this journey.