An Ode to the Cookie Lady

During my year as a surgical intern, the only work hour restrictions were the limits of human endurance —the 168-h week. It was hard. Your view of reality, of yourself, of others and the world around you became fundamentally altered when the alarm was set for 3:45am and you began seeing patients before the sun came up. What day was it? What season were we in? None of those designations mattered as much as which rotation it was —hepatobiliary month, followed by cardiac, and then the intensive care unit. In a real sense, it was an internment…a forced (yet voluntary) removal from society at large and indoctrination into the virtual medical hermitage that we all join. Amidst the bile leaking around nasogastric tubes, atte mpted sutures anchoring a drain in an ascitic abdomen, and the neverending diabetic dressing changes on nonhealing wounds, there was one woman who remained a steadfast beacon of humanity and compassion, even as the meaning of those words escaped my immediate grasp. The Cookie Lady.
Source: Anesthesiology - Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: research