In Chapter 7, Michele beings working at the Veterans Affairs Hospital where she meets Vicki, a veteran who has survived psychological and sexual abuse in the military. She reflects on another young patient from her past who did not feel safe in public spaces and reflects on how this lack of safety leads individuals to make life-altering choices. At her new workplace in a poor and marginalized community, Michele treats a young man who is injured and ultimately dies as a result of gang violence. Michele then learns that she has been passed over for a promotion because of the systemic racism in her workplace and resigns. Michele follows the law and the ethical codes of the hospital but both the police and her co-workers question her authority and her choices. She explores the role that systemic racism played in this interaction between Michele, the patient, the police, and the other hospital staff. In Chapter 5, Michele advocates for a patient who has been placed under arrest and who does not want to consent to a medical examination.
This experience prompts Michele to reflect on the vulnerabilities of medical workers as well as when and how a patient like this should be held responsible for his actions. In the next chapter, Michele treats a patient who had previously assaulted a female doctor. The loss of this infant breaks open something inside of her and she recognizes openings as opportunities for healing. Michele is shaken by this loss and the possibility that she may never have a child of her own.
During a night shift, Michele and her team are unable to resuscitate an infant who had suddenly and inexplicably stopped breathing at home. Instead, he ended their marriage, and Michele is left to rebuild her life alone in a new city. At the end of her medical residency, Michele had planned to move to Philadelphia with her husband. She wants to be of service to others through healing. While growing up with a physically abusive father, Michele decides to become a doctor and specifically want to work in emergency rooms. Like her patients, she has been broken but believes that there is something beautiful and worthy in the process of healing and rebirth. She has learned to cultivate stillness amid struggle, in part from her experience growing up with an abusive father, and knows that it is her job to find that stillness in the chaos of emergency medicine as she does everything she can to heal her patients and keep death at bay. Michele Harper is an emergency medicine doctor. The following version of the book was used to create this study guide: Harper, Michelle.
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