Publication
Article
Psychiatric Times
February Thaw
Author(s):
Key Takeaways
- The poem explores the emotional challenges faced by healthcare professionals in emergency settings, particularly during winter.
- A Senior Resident grapples with conflicting emotions of disdain and duty towards intoxicated patients, especially Drunken Johnny.
"It is the winter of chest pain and snow, all the drunks smashed through the ER doors..."
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It is the winter of chest pain and snow,
all the drunks smashed
through the ER doors.
Our Senior Resident in his new blue coat
can coax a silent heart,
but only curses the jaundiced men,
exiles them to frozen doorways,
shivered Thunderbird,
the lukewarm comfort of bitter coffee.
And he hates Drunken Johnny most of all,
loathes him and saves him,
Johnny rising immortal in disregard
for the slum of his body.
One night, he stumbles in, explosive,
ice loaded on his beard,
snow like soot falling from his flak jacket.
He shuffles to the gurney,
the Senior’s rage like an ice storm.
Johnny’s hands shake
to untie a glazed lace,
and when he grunts a drunken heave
on his boot, his foot breaks off
silent as torn moldy bread.
Johnny collapses, an intern vomits,
but the Senior stands hard
until tears kick across his face
and he wails like spring rain for a surgeon.
Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 27 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.
