Issue 21 / 2003
21 / Rage and Reconciliation
Dispatches from inside the American health care system
This issue features writers, both patients and doctors, exploring the current state of American health care. In “Notes from a Difficult Case,” winner of the Creative Nonfiction Best Essay Award, Ruthann Robson, herself a lawyer, debates the potential effectiveness of her own medical malpractice suit. In “Burden of Oath,” Linda Peeno tackles the medical ethics of HMOs. These and nine other authors lend a personal perspective to problems in our health care system.
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Close Encounters of the Worst Kind
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.What’s the Story #21
While immersing myself at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for research on a book about the world of organ transplantation, the transplant surgical team would round in a pack—sometimes as many as 40 at a time in white coats, marching marionettes into the transplant wards.The Agony and the Agony
The plan was to break open the tiny tabernacle, split the relic, swallow it and see what transpired. To carry out this borderline sacrilegious project, though it was not our intent to be irreverent in any way, we used one of mother’s steel steak knives, carefully dissecting the microscopic sliver of St.Burden of Oath
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Babies as a Problem
A Merging of Head and Heart
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Interesting Case: Do Not Discard
Hypoplastic Heart
The Last Train to Clarksville: A Journey Through Breast Cancer Diagnosis
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Postpartum
Lessons from the Unlikely
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.The Right Thing
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Notes from a Difficult Case
Almost everyone I know advised me to sue. Their advice was not casual, because almost everyone I know is an attorney. As am I. At 42, I’d been an attorney almost half my life.