A New Wahine is Coming by Aileen Ferrer, MS3 She is a multiethnic woman of Hawaiian heritage living with end-stage liver disease from alcohol- related cirrhosis. Full of heart and spirit, she radiates life even through the telltale yellowing of her skin and eyes, the abdominal distention from worsening ascites, and the spider angiomas that trace across her chest and back. But this isn’t just the story of her illness. It’s the story of a woman who has walked through darkness

He was more than just a terminal diagnosis by Bao Xin “Hailey” Liang, MS4 In the EMR, he was a 39-year-old Native Hawaiian man with advanced gastric cancer. Obstructive jaundice. Failed ERCP in Hilo. Now transferred over to Oahu for higher-level care. Two additional procedures were performed to relieve obstruction in his bile duct and duodenum. A patient with poor prognosis. On paper, he was a problem list. In medicine, it is easy for a person to become a paragraph, compresse

The Human, and the Human Who Heals Them by Kalpana Balaraman, MS2 She yanked the door open and strode briskly into the room, lingering her hand on the door knob to swing it quickly shut after I trickled into the patient room behind her, trying to be as smooth and non-disruptive as a shadow. She always moves hastily; as the chief of family medicine in an outpatient clinic, one would think that she rarely has time to slow down and take a breath. But when we walked into this pa

#compassionatecareweek "Embracing Humanity in Medicine: A Reflection on Providing Dignified End-of-Life Care" Bao Xin "Hailey" Liang, MS3...

#compassionatecareweek "The First Time" Justin Abe, MS2 After rushing around the wards from patient to patient, my preceptor and the...