This time was different. Like many other physicians, I have been called on to address
audiences in various settings—to groups small and large, in conference rooms formal
and informal, and in locations nearby and far away. But everything about my presentation
on this day was discombobulating: I was standing at a pulpit, not at a podium, and
in a massive church, not a medical conference room, and I was looking at a standing-room-only
crowd of hundreds of people dressed in suits and dresses who, unlike me, were people
of color. Although the setting was foreign to me, my presence there was no mistake.
My patient, who I will call Beatrice (a name that means “to give joy”), a remarkable
woman in her 40s, had died, and her husband had asked that I speak at her funeral.
I felt both deeply honored and completely out of my comfort zone.
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to The American Journal of MedicineAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
Article Info
Publication History
Published online: October 10, 2021
Footnotes
Funding source: None.
Declaration of Competing Interest: None.
Identification
Copyright
© 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
