Overview

Where It Hurts invites us to peer into the space between health and illness, life and death, through the voices of the people who work on medicine’s frontlines: doctors, nurses, EMTs, therapists, and more. In raw and revealing essays, stories, and poems, they share what it’s like to deal with difficult patients, life-changing diagnoses, private doubts, painful failures, and the victories that keep them going. By turns conversational, spare, urgent, poetic, plain-spoken, heart-rending, and heart-mending, each piece offers a glimpse into the extraordinary daily realities of those charged with taking care of us at our most vulnerable. A doctor shares the do-or-die pep talk she gives herself while performing a life-saving procedure. A nurse wrestles with caring for a woman accused of murder. A neurologist recalls how learning the art of pole dancing helped her through residency. A GI fellow serves us an unorthodox “cure” for an ER regular with a dangerous love for fajitas. A surgeon-poet imagines inviting Death over for tea. Anger, shame, panic, loneliness, love, hate, wonder, joy: They’re all part of a day’s work. As the authors of each piece unpack the highs and lows of their vocation, they teach us what it means to empathize deeply, to live fully, and to be human.

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Table of Contents

Reviews

""In Where It Hurts, sixty-three medical professionals—talented writers all—narrate the challenges of ministering to the sick, among them a teen who attempted suicide, a child who needs a pediatric intubation, a dead nineteen-year-old whose harvested kidneys will save a recipient’s life, a dying COVID-19 patient in the ICU, and dozens more. I’ll not soon forget the voices of these dedicated physicians, nurses, teachers, and technicians who treat their patients with humanity, compassion, and humility. I was riveted and moved by this collection."" -- Wally Lamb, #1 bestselling author ""Where it Hurts is a powerful anthology with its origins in caregiving, and the pain and suffering that invokes it. The humanity of these poems, stories, and essays makes for compelling reading, an opportunity for spiritual enlargement, and a reminder of why medicine is so much more than service."" -- Thomas McGuane, author of A Wooded Shore and The Longest Silence ""The honest, heartbreaking, and uplifting voices of doctors and nurses, EMTs and medical students not only bring us behind the scenes of surgeries and intubations and autopsies, but also let us into their hearts and minds, inviting us to bear witness to everything from the giggle of a pole dancing neurologist to the wailing of a mother who learns her baby has no heartbeat. This book will continue to echo long after you finish it."" -- Ann Hood, bestselling author of The Knitting Circle and Comfort: A Journey Through Grief ""Doctors and nurses are people too—multi-layered, mysterious human beings with complex emotional reactions to the care they provide and the patients they encounter. Ranging panoramically in perspective and tone—from the haunting experiences of adolescent psychiatric nurse Jennifer Anderson in “Managed Care,” to family physician Joanne Wilkinson’s confrontation with her own powerlessness to help a woman with advanced Alzheimer’s in “Invisible,” to infectious-disease doctor Ben Goldenberg’s charming paean to hospital gift shops, “For the Old Man Buying a Stuffed Giraffe”—this collection offers readers grand works of literature in miniature. Each piece is a perfect morsel of perception: a window into the soul of a caregiver and a mirror for the reader’s reflection. A testament to the power of narrative medicine, Where It Hurts belongs on every healer’s nightstand."" -- Jacob M. Appel, MD, author of Who Says You’re Dead? ""Where It Hurts gathers voices from the intimate, vital space between clinicians and patients, tracing the invisible threads that connect body and story. The writings in this collection reveal the emotional core of medicine—tender, raw, and deeply human."" -- Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of What Doctors Feel and editor-in-chief of Bellevue Literary Review ""Gritty and abrasive. Brutally honest and forged with sweat equity and spilled blood. Where It Hurts is a collection of essays and poems that will seize your heart. Even when I wanted to retreat and calm my soul, I kept turning the pages. True stories of immeasurable grief and self-doubt tiled alongside the splendor of rebirth and the wonder of curiosity. This is writing performed by experts with lived experience, who know the guttural pain of fractured clinician-patient relationships and the holiness of covenant. What does it mean when your vocation puts you face-to-face with tensions born of racism and religious blindness? How do I as a physician reconcile my own judgements and righteous anger alongside my pledge to cure and care? My shame-induced isolation was broken and my pride exposed. Suicide, addiction, personal trauma, and moral injury. Glory, beauty, empathy, and love. Open the covers of Where It Hurts and all these will be yours. But be prepared. These words will occupy your mind and stir in you uncomfortable questions long after you’re done."" -- Wes Ely, MD, physician-scientist and practicing intensivist at Vanderbilt University, and author of Every Deep-Drawn Breath ""Where it Hurts masterfully spotlights the humanity, humility, and vulnerability of clinicians at the front lines of health care in the United States. Often portrayed in popular media as either superheroes or automatons, health care professionals wrestle with a battleground of universal emotions—self-doubt, fear of mortality, curiosity, tenderness, panic, love, and despair. Their candid stories offer a window into the messy, poignant, and meaningful facets of the human condition."" -- Erica C. Kaye, MD, oncologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital ""Where It Hurts cuts to the core of what it means to be a clinician today. From Rachel Kowalsky’s instructions for “Your First Pediatric Intubation”—with lurking dragons—to the unexpected poignancy of Trisha K. Paul’s “Stroppy Sevens,” each piece in this anthology examines the beauty, the challenges, and the emotional depth of caring for another person."" -- Sneha Mantri, MD, Director of Medical Humanities at Duke University School of Medicine ""Where It Hurts could easily have been called Where It Heals. The essays, short stories, and poems do not sugar coat the struggles of navigating illness. Yet somehow, the collection is a healing balm for anyone impacted by their own or someone else’s illness—which is to say anyone who is human."" -- Elizabeth Lahti, MD, associate professor and director of narrative medicine at Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine ""Where It Hurts lifts the curtain on the hidden dramas of medicine. These essays and poems reveal the vulnerabilities, private reckonings, fears, and sheer joys of those on the front lines of medical care. A must-read for anyone going into a health care profession, or anyone who may need their services."" -- Randi Hutter Epstein, MD, writer in residence and director of the Writing for the Public program at Yale University School of Medicine ""This rich, compelling collection will help physicians, nurses, and their patients (who are, ultimately, all of us) learn important lessons about human nature and what it means to care for each other."" -- Joel Howell, MD, PhD, director emeritus of the Medical Arts Program, University of Michigan Medical School ""The nature of health and illness and the intimacies of our bodily experience are at once deeply personal and profoundly universal. Where It Hurts explores this fascinating terrain. This is a book for clinicians, educators, and anyone drawn to ponder this enterprise of living in our beautiful, perfectly imperfect bodies."" -- Deepu Gowda, MD, assistant dean for medical education, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine ""The nature of health and illness and the intimacies of our bodily experience are at once deeply personal and profoundly universal. Where It Hurts explores this fascinating terrain. This is a book for clinicians, educators, and anyone drawn to ponder this enterprise of living in our beautiful, perfectly imperfect bodies."" -- Deepu Gowda, MD, assistant dean for medical education, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine ""The voices in this collection—wise, tender, funny, and vulnerable—pierce right to the heart of medicine, revealing those profound journeys that unfold in a moment when the stakes are high and humans care for other humans."" -- Jay Baruch, MD, author of Tornado of Life: A Doctor's Journey through Creativity and Constraints in the ER ""An extraordinary collection that highlights the intersection between medical mysteries and the mysteries of the human spirit. Each piece is provocative, inspiring, resonant, humane. Brilliantly curated, this collection offers profound, clear-eyed comment on our times and what is most crucial in our lives. A book to return to over and again for insight, compassion, and courage."" -- Lou Ann Walker, editor-in-chief of The Southampton Review ""The medical field can feel cold and impersonal to patients, and also to doctors, nurses, and others who work in health care. This book should be required reading for students, physicians, nurses, and anyone who has to deal with the health care system (and that includes all of us!). Highly recommended."" -- David G. Thoele, MD, and Marjorie Getz, PhD, co-directors of the narrative medicine program at Advocate Health

""In this collection of more than 60 essays, short stories, and poems, health professionals candidly and tenderly consider the work that they do, what it means to them, and its emotional impact."" -- Booklist ""In Where It Hurts, sixty-three medical professionals—talented writers all—narrate the challenges of ministering to the sick, among them a teen who attempted suicide, a child who needs a pediatric intubation, a dead nineteen-year-old whose harvested kidneys will save a recipient’s life, a dying COVID-19 patient in the ICU, and dozens more. I’ll not soon forget the voices of these dedicated physicians, nurses, teachers, and technicians who treat their patients with humanity, compassion, and humility. I was riveted and moved by this collection."" -- Wally Lamb, #1 bestselling author ""Where it Hurts is a powerful anthology with its origins in caregiving, and the pain and suffering that invokes it. The humanity of these poems, stories, and essays makes for compelling reading, an opportunity for spiritual enlargement, and a reminder of why medicine is so much more than service."" -- Thomas McGuane, author of A Wooded Shore and The Longest Silence ""The honest, heartbreaking, and uplifting voices of doctors and nurses, EMTs and medical students not only bring us behind the scenes of surgeries and intubations and autopsies, but also let us into their hearts and minds, inviting us to bear witness to everything from the giggle of a pole dancing neurologist to the wailing of a mother who learns her baby has no heartbeat. This book will continue to echo long after you finish it."" -- Ann Hood, bestselling author of The Knitting Circle and Comfort: A Journey Through Grief ""Doctors and nurses are people too—multi-layered, mysterious human beings with complex emotional reactions to the care they provide and the patients they encounter. Ranging panoramically in perspective and tone—from the haunting experiences of adolescent psychiatric nurse Jennifer Anderson in “Managed Care,” to family physician Joanne Wilkinson’s confrontation with her own powerlessness to help a woman with advanced Alzheimer’s in “Invisible,” to infectious-disease doctor Ben Goldenberg’s charming paean to hospital gift shops, “For the Old Man Buying a Stuffed Giraffe”—this collection offers readers grand works of literature in miniature. Each piece is a perfect morsel of perception: a window into the soul of a caregiver and a mirror for the reader’s reflection. A testament to the power of narrative medicine, Where It Hurts belongs on every healer’s nightstand."" -- Jacob M. Appel, MD, author of Who Says You’re Dead? ""Where It Hurts gathers voices from the intimate, vital space between clinicians and patients, tracing the invisible threads that connect body and story. The writings in this collection reveal the emotional core of medicine—tender, raw, and deeply human."" -- Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of What Doctors Feel and editor-in-chief of Bellevue Literary Review ""Gritty and abrasive. Brutally honest and forged with sweat equity and spilled blood. Where It Hurts is a collection of essays and poems that will seize your heart. Even when I wanted to retreat and calm my soul, I kept turning the pages. True stories of immeasurable grief and self-doubt tiled alongside the splendor of rebirth and the wonder of curiosity. This is writing performed by experts with lived experience, who know the guttural pain of fractured clinician-patient relationships and the holiness of covenant. What does it mean when your vocation puts you face-to-face with tensions born of racism and religious blindness? How do I as a physician reconcile my own judgements and righteous anger alongside my pledge to cure and care? My shame-induced isolation was broken and my pride exposed. Suicide, addiction, personal trauma, and moral injury. Glory, beauty, empathy, and love. Open the covers of Where It Hurts and all these will be yours. But be prepared. These words will occupy your mind and stir in you uncomfortable questions long after you’re done."" -- Wes Ely, MD, physician-scientist and practicing intensivist at Vanderbilt University, and author of Every Deep-Drawn Breath ""Where it Hurts masterfully spotlights the humanity, humility, and vulnerability of clinicians at the front lines of health care in the United States. Often portrayed in popular media as either superheroes or automatons, health care professionals wrestle with a battleground of universal emotions—self-doubt, fear of mortality, curiosity, tenderness, panic, love, and despair. Their candid stories offer a window into the messy, poignant, and meaningful facets of the human condition."" -- Erica C. Kaye, MD, oncologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital ""Where It Hurts cuts to the core of what it means to be a clinician today. From Rachel Kowalsky’s instructions for “Your First Pediatric Intubation”—with lurking dragons—to the unexpected poignancy of Trisha K. Paul’s “Stroppy Sevens,” each piece in this anthology examines the beauty, the challenges, and the emotional depth of caring for another person."" -- Sneha Mantri, MD, Director of Medical Humanities at Duke University School of Medicine ""Where It Hurts could easily have been called Where It Heals. The essays, short stories, and poems do not sugar coat the struggles of navigating illness. Yet somehow, the collection is a healing balm for anyone impacted by their own or someone else’s illness—which is to say anyone who is human."" -- Elizabeth Lahti, MD, associate professor and director of narrative medicine at Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine ""Where It Hurts lifts the curtain on the hidden dramas of medicine. These essays and poems reveal the vulnerabilities, private reckonings, fears, and sheer joys of those on the front lines of medical care. A must-read for anyone going into a health care profession, or anyone who may need their services."" -- Randi Hutter Epstein, MD, writer in residence and director of the Writing for the Public program at Yale University School of Medicine ""This rich, compelling collection will help physicians, nurses, and their patients (who are, ultimately, all of us) learn important lessons about human nature and what it means to care for each other."" -- Joel Howell, MD, PhD, director emeritus of the Medical Arts Program, University of Michigan Medical School ""The nature of health and illness and the intimacies of our bodily experience are at once deeply personal and profoundly universal. Where It Hurts explores this fascinating terrain. This is a book for clinicians, educators, and anyone drawn to ponder this enterprise of living in our beautiful, perfectly imperfect bodies."" -- Deepu Gowda, MD, assistant dean for medical education, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine ""The nature of health and illness and the intimacies of our bodily experience are at once deeply personal and profoundly universal. Where It Hurts explores this fascinating terrain. This is a book for clinicians, educators, and anyone drawn to ponder this enterprise of living in our beautiful, perfectly imperfect bodies."" -- Deepu Gowda, MD, assistant dean for medical education, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine ""The voices in this collection—wise, tender, funny, and vulnerable—pierce right to the heart of medicine, revealing those profound journeys that unfold in a moment when the stakes are high and humans care for other humans."" -- Jay Baruch, MD, author of Tornado of Life: A Doctor's Journey through Creativity and Constraints in the ER ""An extraordinary collection that highlights the intersection between medical mysteries and the mysteries of the human spirit. Each piece is provocative, inspiring, resonant, humane. Brilliantly curated, this collection offers profound, clear-eyed comment on our times and what is most crucial in our lives. A book to return to over and again for insight, compassion, and courage."" -- Lou Ann Walker, editor-in-chief of The Southampton Review ""The medical field can feel cold and impersonal to patients, and also to doctors, nurses, and others who work in health care. This book should be required reading for students, physicians, nurses, and anyone who has to deal with the health care system (and that includes all of us!). Highly recommended."" -- David G. Thoele, MD, and Marjorie Getz, PhD, co-directors of the narrative medicine program at Advocate Health

Author Information

Donna Bulseco is the editor-in-chief of the journal of narrative medicine Intima and a longtime journalist and editor. She has graduate degrees in English literature from Brown University and narrative medicine from Columbia University. She is an editor and contributor to publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Self, InStyle, the Purist, and others. Rita Charon is a general internist and literary scholar and one of the founders of the field of narrative medicine. She completed her MD at Harvard Medical School and her PhD in English at Columbia University. She is the Bernard Schoenberg Professor of Social Medicine, Professor of Medicine, and founding chair of the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics at Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons. Her research in narrative medicine has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and many private foundations. She has authored, co-authored, or co-edited four books on narrative medicine. The NEH, the NIH, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and numerous medical associations have honored her with awards and distinctions. She lectures and teaches internationally and publishes extensively in leading medical and literary journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association, Academic Medicine, Narrative, Henry James Review, Poetics Today, and SubStance.

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