scope 2009-FINAL.qxd_scope06Final.qxd - SIU School of Medicine

Art Editors
Carrie Reschke, MSIV
Adam Andruska, MSII
Rubab Hasnie, MSI
Brandon Hamm, MSI
Layout Editors
Lacey Ufkes, MSIV
Omoni Ekhomu, MSIV
Adam Andruska, MSII
Publicity
Mary Sterrett, MSII
Kaylee Rosenbaum, MSI
Tyler Vaughn, MSI
Faculty Advisors
Phil Davis, Ph.D.
Jacqueline Scolari, Ph.D.
2009
Editorial Staff
Editors-in-Chief
Kate Richards, MSII
Rachel Ade, MSIII
Associate Editors
Amber May, MSI
Tyler Vaughn, MSI
Poetry/Prose Editors
Gina Paulaskis, MSII
Nadia Ali, MSII
Review Editors
Natasha Kyte, MSII
Nadia Ali, MSII
Gina Dawe, MSI
Safiya McNeese, MSI
Kaylee Rosenbaum, MSI
Reading/Reception Coordinator
Jennifer Rose, MSIII
Staff Editors
Karen Carlson
Jim Hawker
We would like to send out a special thank you to those
who reviewed the entries and helped create SCOPE 2009.

From the Editors:
2 SCOPE 2009
Welcome all to the 16th edition of SCOPE, SIU School of
Medicine’s literary journal. Each year we solicit entries for our
publication, and each year we are blown away by not only the
volume of responses but the ease with which the artists put so much of themselves
into their work. We thank all who submitted for generously sharing their
talents and also for their courage to offer such personal reflections on life’s most
intimate matters.
We would like to thank all involved in this project including our many
reviewers for their time and energy, the editors responsible for getting the publication
together, Karen Carlson, Dr. Phil Davis, Jim Hawker, and Dr. Jacqueline
Scolari for their direction and help, and finally, all those who put themselves
“out there” by contributing a piece.
We hope you enjoy reading SCOPE as much as we enjoyed putting it together.
Kate Richards, MSII
Rachel Ade, MSIII
Editors-in-Chief

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Poetry
Page
Sonata No. 8 in C Minor 6
Michael R. Pranzatelli, M.D.
1st Place
Idle Hands 10
Cassandra Laskowski
Face to Face 12
Wesley Robinson McNeese, M.D.
2nd Place
The Procession 14
Cassandra Laskowski
All Youth is Resurrection 17
Arwen Mtchell
D. Thomas 21
Blaine Eubanks, M.D.
There Are Times I Don’t Like to Write 22
Michael R. Pranzatelli, M.D.
Too 24
Kathleen CM Campbell, Ph.D.
Love’s Playground of Me’s and You’s 25
Amber May
Rolling Up the Rug 31
Blaine Eubanks, M.D.
3rd Place
Day Dream 33
Matthew Ashley
Two of You 39
Matthew Ashley
SCOPE 2009
3

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Prose
Page
Terrier 8
Blaine Eubanks, M.D.
A Hard Day for Me 18
Jacob Broderick
1st Place
Mortal Pain 27
Elizabeth D. Tate
2nd Place
Promise Made, Promise Kept 35
Sandra L. Shea Ph.D.
3rd Place
4 SCOPE 2009

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❖
Visual Art
Page
Windy Winter Weather 11
Tyler Fitch
Looking Above the Hustle and Bustle
Tyler Fitch 16
2nd Place
Dilated Cardiomyopathy 20
Terrence Carter
Cypress Knees On Lake Springfield 26
Tom Ala, M.D.
3rd Place
The Scenic Stream (Fish Thought) 32
Brandon Hamm
Grazing Sheep 34
Kelsey Thornton
Ice Chandelier 38
Paula Heine
Navy Pier 40
Kelsey Thornton
1st Place
SCOPE 2009
5

Sonata no. 8 in C minor
6 SCOPE 2009
It’s the kind of thing
you might not notice
when the music plays
and hands at the piano
release Beethoven from the page,
one note after another
in the slow movement
of Pathétique.
I’m thinking
about the very first time
I heard it on the radio, how
Karl Haas adopted it
as his motto theme on NPR.
And everywhere it makes
me stop and listen
to something new
and something heard before.
But now
it’s not a sonata anymore;
it’s turned concerto
with bleeping monitors,

quick ventilator strokes,
and distant conversations
about trivialities
as the ICU attending gazes left
and I, the neurologist, to the right,
past the awkward incongruity
that hovers over the bed and
stalks students and residents in the corners.
And nurses chart the vital signs
or fix the lines
or move about with
squeaky shoes on the shiny floor
while the tape the parents made
for their brain dead baby
plays it over and over and over again
like Beethoven must have done
when he first heard it in his head,
first felt it … in his heart
Michael R. Pranzatelli, M.D.
Department of Neurology
1st Place Poetry
SCOPE 2009
7

Terrier
Before he knew it he was hearing about Jack Russell terriers. He was on the seventeenth
floor of the Detroit office, Friday the 18th, his mother’s birthday.
“Did you know I bought one?” she asked.
“I didn’t,” he said. “I didn’t know that.” His eyes ached.
“I did!” she said. “First thing I had him fixed. It is so beautiful. It makes this little
noise when I come home — this little noise like” — and the yip of an excited animal
came through the phone.
He was looking across the desk at a picture of a brunette, surrounded by three men
in their twenties, all three of them smiling and holding drinks.
“And it claps, too,” she said. “If you bring chew toys home. He loves Topeka! He
loves it here. He makes a noise and then he claps like a little man! But I’m not calling
about that.”
“Oh?” he said.
“Yeah, no but I do want to send you the pictures. You should see the way he plays
with Muffin and Scooter. Brother and sister! No, I need to talk to your mom actually.”
His mother lived in Newburgh, Kansas, and it was now eight o’clock there. She
interrupted the thought.
“Because we’ve always had a bond. Your mom. Your mom and I! We’re like soulmates.
We’re like sisters. I just think like you think about her believe me I know I do. Did
you know we were in the same sorority?”
He remembered the ugly sofa in the front room of the fraternity house and the
leather sofa he owned now.
“And I’m at work and everything but I still have to clean the second floor. I do need
to get her number though. We’re holding a cakewalk on the third, and I thought she
might be interested in helping, and I wanted to give her a call.”
He repeated the number dutifully.
“So I just talked to Annette Graham and we’re going up to Englewood next
weekend to go out with the Luthers. Remember the Luthers? I bet you have all kinds of
parties up there though.”
“It’s not bad here,” he said. “Glad to be out of school, at least.” Through the glass
doors Martie waved goodnight and he blinked back.
“Yeah well everybody is so proud of you,” she said. “Everybody at home. We all
just can’t believe little Blowie. Out in the big world. Big important guy now,” she said.
“Jonette is really happy here. She loves the city.” he said.
“Oh, getting another call,” she said. “Probably Rachel. Call me later?” she said.
He hung up the phone and the office was still dark and he thought about the
fringes and he looked out the glass over the city. There was a small windowsill and on
it he noticed a praying mantis cocking its head. He wondered if they had eyes.
Whatever it was on their face certainly looked like eyes. Being in mutual funds was a
job he loved. But there were times when he wished he had taken some sort of biology
8 SCOPE 2009

course, even in high school.
He thought of turning on the lights but did not. His mind was tied like a Kansas
mule to the thought of a Jack Russell terrier and Derek Sullivan’s arms and a pair of
small grapefruits and the ice cream cone he had once paid seven dollars for and the
tickets were twenty dollars too. His marriage and his wife and new five hundred dollar
granite countertops, this call that came once a year, no comment, not once had she
invited him upstairs.
Blaine Eubanks, M.D.
Class of 2008
SCOPE 2009
9

Idle Hands
It happens mostly when I’m waiting:
In line at the grocery store
holding a gallon of milk and a bag of chips
on my hips
Or standing at the elevator
counting the floors
humming with each ting
before it opens in front of me
And queuing at the post office
parcels and postage
hugged to my stomach
as I shuffle to the front
I begin to sway
quite unconsciously
gently side to side
right, left, right
I only become aware
when my hand detaches and
snakes to my chest
to find no little head arrest
No squishy butt
wedged in that space between
my heart and my arm’s bow
trying to wiggle out of tow
I am rocking this void
while I wait
for my very last
chance to pass
10 SCOPE 2009
Cassandra Laskowski
Community

Windy Winter Weather
Photography
Tyler Fitch
Class of 2012
SCOPE 2009
11

Face to Face
12 SCOPE 2009
(Upon seeing the cover of Roberta Senechal de la Roche’s book:
“In Lincoln’s Shadow: The 1908 Race Riot of Springfield, Illinois”)
I never want to meet this person alone, and face to face!
This is the face, sinister, prideful and unapologetic that forever altered the history of my
people who were stolen from their homes and brought to this land.
This is the face my father warned me about, saying, “Boy, you can’t go over there with those
people. . .You be careful when you go downtown.”
This is the face that chased my father’s car down Mississippi roads ‘til he found refuge at
a restaurant and stayed there ‘til some Black college students escorted him across the
state line into Tennessee. He saw the face in his rear-view mirror and later described it
to me.
This is the face that has haunted my dreams since the very first time I learned what
racism looks like and what hate sounds like; it chased me back to my part of East St.
Louis and yelled, “You better stay in the South-End, Black Boy!”
This is the face that held a gun to my head and thundered, “What the hell you doin’ in this
part of town, Nigga?” when I was a teenager lost in Alton on my way to a hayride.
This is the face that yelled at me and said, “You damn well betta git outta that wadda, Darkey,”
as I swam with fellow soldiers in the waters off Biloxi beach.
This is the face I averted my eyes from and slightly bowed my head to as I stepped off
the wooden sidewalk in Hattiesburg to allow it to pass.
This is the face I watch for as I travel Route 127 through and out of Pinckneyville, past
the sign on the outskirts of town that reads, ‘Coon Club’. This is the face that makes
me never ever drive that same route to Carbondale late at night, but travel the extra 35
miles that keep me on the interstate.

This is the face that causes me to shy away from being an outdoors person, for fear I
might meet it one day in the deep brush.
This is the face that leads me to drive I-70 or I-40 on family road-trips out west rather
than I-80 or I-94, and I’d really like to see Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.
This is the face that whispers behind my back when I walk down hallways and snickers
at me in restaurants.
This is the face that disapprovingly looks at the car I drive and the house where I live
and wonders, “Who is that, Jigaboo? or Who does he think he is?”
I’m certain of it; this is the face.
I’m afraid of this face!
I hate this face!
I never want to meet this person alone, and face to face!
Wesley Robinson McNeese, M.D.
Office of the Dean
2nd Place Poetry
SCOPE 2009
13

The Procession
New Love
freshly milled lumber
pushed by steady hands through the whirling blade
sap running down
sticking to the downy piles of saw dust at the millwright’s feet
-tongued and grooved-
slipping one length perfectly into the next
laying side by side in tandem
aligned in perfect unison
supporting the other, stronger together
than a single board could be
coarse, opaque, untended by the years yet to be
unworn, new with possibilities
Middle Love
measured and cut
sanded and stained
hammered down with galvanized nails
counter sunk
and polished to a high sheen
padded feet sliding across
in unmitigated joy and uncontrollable screams
tickled bellies and raspberries
roll across the floor where
hot wheels and roller skates
have marred and gouged
but the cedar holds steadfast
it is strong, secure with knowing and time
dividing the burden, sharing the bountiful comfort
of commitment to each other
14 SCOPE 2009

Seasoned Love
long faded rectangles
bleached by seasons of open curtains
and scuttling white socks have
worn it perfectly smooth
errant splinters
no longer piercing bare feet
it is warped some now, sagging some now
it creaks in the same predictable spots now
but it is fully realized now
it is solidthe
unyielding foundation for everything that came before
and has long since been outgrown
and everything that is yet to come
and is deeply anticipated
it has been weathered
and dust has settled into the piney knots,
glitter and postage stamps have slipped through the widening spaces
no secret to each other how much weight has been borne
how many angry words absorbed falling from regretful lips
but so many more sugary crumbs of laughter
and brandy laced kisses
wrinkled feet creaking the floor boards in a syncopated waltz
saw dust still lingering, cushioning
those moments betweenmelding
the mill’s first cut, the child’s first step and love’s last kiss
Cassandra Laskowski
Community
SCOPE 2009
15

16 SCOPE 2009
Looking Above the Hustle and Bustle
Photography
Tyler Fitch
Class of 2012
2nd Place Art

All Youth is Resurrection
Small brown bear was small lost bear
leftover guest from overnight guest
no real claim. Tho
he smelt of her home and looked of her home
he made my lungs ache and my heart break,
cigarette reek,
and holey, holy little broken back.
Yet inside was a music box,
which ticked a cadence in my ear,
I would wind him up and feel
the little metal heart beats tinkling.
Arwen Mitchell
Community
SCOPE 2009
17

A Hard Day for Me
It took a while for my eyes to open; also for my eyes to focus on the clock. The
green blur made me groan as it unblurred into a number. 7:00. Waking up was hard.
I dragged my body off the bed, where I fell to my knees and said a poor excuse
for a prayer. “God, thanks for being there for me. I’m grateful for my life. Sorry, I’m so
lazy right now.” I walked to the shower. At least I was standing. If the water didn’t turn
cold, I’d have kept standing there.
Oatmeal. Garage door. Car door. Ignition. Reverse. Drive.
Cool blue air surrounded my heating car. I drove toward the doctor’s office. I
knew today would be hard. I wore a white coat, and the stethoscope dangled around my
neck with the feeling of a new wedding ring – pleasant, significant, enchanting. New.
“I’m here to mentor with the doctor.”
“Sign in.”
Open the door. 20 steps down a hallway. “Hi. Start in this second room.”
Another door. “Hi, I’m a student mentoring with the doctor. How are you?”
“I’m angry.”
“He’s angry and depressed. It scares me.”
“I’m sad.”
Another door. “Hi, I’m a student mentoring with the doctor. How are you?”
“It hurts in my arm.”
“Where exactly?”
“Here.”
Another door. “Hi, I’m…”
“Mommy, where’s the real doctor.” (I grin)
“There are two today.”
“Why are there two doctors?”
“Cause you’re that important.”
Another door. “Hi, I’m a student mentoring with the doctor. How are you?”
“My stomach hurts.”
“Where exactly?”
“Here”
“Does it hurt when I push on it?”
“Maybe. My wife is dead.”
A moment.
“How long has she been gone?”
“1 year.”
“How long were you married?”
“52 years.”
18
SCOPE 2009

Another moment.
Another Door.
“My back hurts.”
“Where exactly?”
“Between my shoulder blades. I think it is the drugs.”
“Drugs?”
“Meth, cocaine, marijuana, and everything… always more.”
“Are you on drugs right now?”
Laugh. “No! I’ve been off for years, but I think my drug days left a painful mark.”
Another door.
“My leg hurts.”
“Where?”
“It’s like a cramp in my calf when I walk.”
What is that? What causes it? What are the risk factors?
“We need to ultrasound your leg.”
Another door. Another door. Another door. I’m tired, it is time to go home.
As I drive, I feel worn. I want to sleep.
Garage door. Kitchen door. There stands my wife.
“Will you go on a drive with me?”
“I’d rather not. How about I take the baby, and you go alone?”
“Never mind.”
She is sad.
“What’s wrong?”
She is silent, looks away.
“What’s wrong?”
She walks a step or two sadly away.
“What (the hell) is wrong?”
“My mom called. My dad may have cancer.”
I held her. We went on a drive. We stayed up late talking.
I was tired, but I couldn’t close my eyes. Why not? I said a prayer on my back.
“God. Please be there for her. Thank you for her. I’m sorry I’m unable to fix
this, that I wasn’t prepared to help her. I’m sorry.”
Jacob Broderick
Class of 2012
1st Place Prose
SCOPE 2009 19

20 SCOPE 2009
Dilated Cardiomyopathy
Photography
Terrence Carter
Class of 2011

D. Thomas
Jesus
a
was
one
lucky
SOB,
I say.
Put
me
on
cross of
wood, hoist my
busted back up before pilate
ceasar mcarthur ike
whoever
whatever I
would take that anytime before this
crucifixion.
I
can’t
shit
can’t
breathe
can’t
swallow
not one more soapsuds
enema. I
have had my
last supper
and
it tasted
like hell, and
I will choose when I
have the stone pulled over
my tomb.
I’ll have
some
more Vicodin
and please don’t
bother
resurrecting
me
thanks.
Blaine Eubanks, M.D.
Class of 2008
SCOPE 2009
21

There Are Times I Don’t Like to Write
22 SCOPE 2009
time and again
those times spent writing
not to loved ones, but to you...
To be a surgeon instead—
there are those times, too.
Yes, I’d like to
give you a warm heart and a chance
for a new lease on life;
or cut your gall bladder and
release the jaundice from your sight.
Or be a psychiatrist to fathom if
you’d do it
to your mother
or
your wife,
or
to your own child
the way you do it
to my patients
when you deny them treatments
to alleviate their plight,
to give hope,
let them feel like humans,
not ICD-9 codes;

or put them through the
one-two-and-you’re-out appeals
you’ll get your ‘doctor’
to decline.
But then...
there are times ahead when
stem cells could penetrate the conscience,
synapse with ethics, compassion, even empathy,
restore, renew, re-humanize—
there are those times, are there not?
Yet would you sign consent,
or remain forever hell-bent
on un-insuring the insured?
And there are times
I write you another letter of appeal...
there are those times
Michael R. Pranzatelli, M.D.
Department of Neurology
SCOPE 2009
23

Too...
Too young to do it.
Too young to do it.
Too young to do it.
Too poor to do it.
Too poor to do it.
Too poor to do it.
Too busy to do it.
Too busy to do it.
Too busy to do it.
Way too busy to do it.
Way too busy to do it.
Way too busy to do it.
Too old to do it.
Too old to do it.
Too old to do it.
Dead.
24 SCOPE 2009
Kathleen CM Campbell, Ph.D.
Department of Surgery

Love’s Playground of Me’s and You’s
That European wine café -
not merely the decadent destination
of our midnight rendezvous,
but love’s playground of me’s and you’s…
Months after the end of us,
An old yearning made me lust.
If not with you,
Perhaps I could share that velvet loveseat
With my current beau.
Meeting there, as we used to,
A shock rolled through me,
With and without you.
A pillaging of the Dionysian lair:
The walls cryptically bare,
Paintings stripped,
Plush cushions ripped,
The windows dark.
Fire burnt out.
Amber May
Class of 2012
SCOPE 2009
25

26 SCOPE 2009
Cypress Knees on Lake Springfield
Photography
Tom Ala, M.D.
Department of Neurology
3rd Place Art

Mortal Pain
Although it was Friday after five o’clock, I walked out into the clinic waiting room.
Checking to make sure there were no more patients was a force of habit.
To my surprise, I saw a tall man sitting in the corner. He was leaning forward
clutching his chest. His ashen color and pained expression gave him the unmistakable
look of an impending heart attack.
I took him into my room and reflexively gave him nitroglycerin and oxygen. How
could they have left a sick patient in the clinic, I wondered.
Suddenly, he grabbed my arm. “Am I going to die?” His hand was cool and clammy.
His eyes looked plaintive and fatigued. Streaks of grey ran through his mostly brown hair.
He was clean but not well groomed.
“Not if we can help it.”
He shook his head at me, but didn’t seem well enough to talk more.
“Just take it easy.” I said.
After a brief time, he was doing better and I was able to get some information.
Satisfied that he was stable for the moment, I began to think about getting him to the
emergency room. I stepped out of the door.
“Hey,” a voice called out behind me at the other end of the hallway. “Where are you
off to in such a hurry? Wait up!”
Without looking I knew it had to be Dr. Carlos Santini. Always upbeat and positive,
Santini loved cracking jokes with everyone. He was handsome with a type A personality,
quick wit, and always enjoying being the center of attention. He missed his calling and
should have been an actor, but I respected him as a physician.
“I’ve got to tell you this joke,” he said with a crescendo of animation.
“Come over here,” I said. “I’ve got a late walk-in patient. Can you eyeball him for
me?”
“Do I look like a glutton for punishment?” Santini retorted playfully.
“I need you in here now,” I insisted.
“Did we have a little too much coffee today?” he bantered.
“He’s got chest pain,” I said, ignoring his remarks. “He looks acute. There are no
medical records here and everyone seems to have left the office, including the secretary.”
Santini’s smile evaporated. We stood just outside my room, so I could keep my eye
on the patient. “Okay, so what do you know about him?”
The brief history I could get is that he was climbing the stairs out of the subway and
felt as if a ton of bricks landed on his chest. The pain was squeezing and radiating down
his left arm. He claims he has never had this kind of pain before, never been seen at our
clinic, and is on no medications. He’s roughly fifty pounds overweight, smokes two packs
SCOPE 2009 27

of cigarettes a day over thirty years, and he puts away a six-pack or two of beer on the
weekends.”
“And what have you done so far?” Santini asked.
“I hooked him up to oxygen by nasal cannula at two liters per minute but his lips
remain cyanotic. I gave him a sublingual nitro- glycerin tablet. I didn’t feel there was time
for an EKG the way he looked. I wanted to get this guy to the ER stat but he was too
unstable to transport by wheelchair.”
“Let’s go see him.”
Mr. Gary Boone looked like a different man as he sat on the examining table. Only
a little short of breath, he was pinker and more relaxed. “Doc,” he said to me, “I feel
better since you put this thing in my nose and that pill under my tongue, but wow— what
a headache, just like you said.” He got off the table and started getting dressed.
“Where are you going?” I asked in bewilderment.
“I’ve got to leave.”
“You’re not ready to leave.”
“Oh, I don’t want to bother you people, so if you just get me unhooked I’ll be on my
way. Thanks a lot.”
Santini gave me a puzzled look as he introduced himself to the patient. “Mr. Boone,
do you have a plane to catch?” he said, trying to inject some levity. “Seriously, though, I
must ask you a few questions. I am responsible for your care today.”
Boone sat down again. “Okay, but please hurry.”
Santini questioned him about previous episodes of chest pain. Boone’s answers were
vague. Santini keep hammering at the point. Mr. Boone, now looked down at the floor
sheepishly and then at me. My intuition told me he was about to confess to something
troublesome. Boone returned Santini’s gaze. “Sure, I‘ve had chest pains before, just not
this bad.”
“Why didn’t you mention this?” Santini asked.
“I don’t know. Look, I have to be honest with you. I don’t want to waste any more
of your time. It comes down to this. I’m not a great husband to my wife. I’ve beaten her
when I was drunk and only knew it by the bruises left on her face the next day. I know
the ticker is giving out but I hope to redeem myself in my wife’s eyes with the $750,000
dollar life insurance policy I have. I deserve this pain. Lord knows I’ve caused her years
of heartache. I just came by to pick up my wife from her appointment and got a little lost.
I came into this clinic, thinking no one was here and I would finally die. This nice lady
saw I was hurting and helped me out. But that’s as far as it goes.” He proceeded to take
off the nasal cannula, stood up, and buttoned his shirt. “I’d gotta get going. My wife will
wonder what happened to me. Can you tell me how to get to the kidney clinic? She has
bad kidneys, you know.”
I looked at Santini in disbelief and was about to say something to Mr. Boone when
Santini cut me off. His face was uncharacteristically stern. “Mr. Boone, I strongly advise
28
SCOPE 2009

you to be fully evaluated. It goes against medical advice to let you go, knowing you’re
bound to have a massive heart attack soon based on today’s symptoms. I really think
you’re doing the wrong thing by not going to the emergency room now.”
“I don’t want to stay and you can’t make me,” Boone said emphatically.
“No, that’s true, I can’t,” Santini replied. A look of resignation came over his bright
face like a shadow. He turned to me. “Do you have any paperwork on Mr. Boone?
“No.”
“Why not?” Santini replied.
“It turns out he never got registered. He looked so ill and in so much pain, I just
assumed he was a walk-in. Otherwise, I would have sent him straight to the ER.” I felt
rather embarrassed.
“Well, let’s stamp up some papers on him, write down his information and what was
done here.” Addressing the patient, Santini said officiously, “I’m going to ask you to sign
your name to acknowledge that we advised you to stay and to have a full cardiac work-up.
You can take a copy of this with you. Is that agreeable?”
Boone nodded.
“Then, I’ll have the nurse practitioner take your vital signs again and write you out
a prescription for nitroglycerin tablets. Put one under your tongue when you get that chest
pain, and if the pain doesn’t subside in ten minutes, take another one. If the pain is still
bad, call 911. The nurse practitioner will write those instructions on your discharge copy.
Do you have any questions?”
“Nope.”
Dr. Santini left.
As I handed the patient the prescription and papers, I asked him seriously to reconsider.
Torn over how much more I should presume to say, I decided to take the plunge.
“Mr. Boone, look, you obviously have regrets about your drinking and the way you
treat your wife. Have you thought about other options? You could get counseling, join
alcoholics anonymous, or go through an alcohol rehabilitation program. It doesn’t have
to be this way.”
He looked up at me blankly.
Mr. Boone seemed like he was considering what I had just said. Then he smiled
slowly and said, “I’ll think it over. Give me your business card.”
I escorted Mr. Boone to the main hallway of the medical building and told him
where to find the nephrology clinic. I advised him to use the elevators and avoid stairwells
at all cost. I reassured myself that he had heeded my words by taking his prescription.
When I returned, Santini was back in my office. In a serious tone, he said, “Now, if
you think that patient is going to count as a number on the clinic revenue ledger, you’re
sadly mistaken. Remember, register the patient first, and then see the patient.”
“But —.”
Santini burst out laughing and held up his hand defensively. “I’m joking, I’m joking.
SCOPE 2009 29

But really — lighten up. You look so serious. You can’t save the world. You have got to
stop trying to save patients who don’t want to be saved. Help those who ask for your
help.”
“Is that why you didn’t fight harder to make him stay?” I asked.
“You mean rant and rave and make a big scene?”
I nodded.
“I would have if I thought it would have done any good. He’s an adult. I’m not a
parent. He’s made up his mind. I’ve met many Mr. Boone’s before. You can’t change
them.”
I had no reply. Inwardly, I thought he was wrong.
As I was walking through the hospital lobby on my way out of the building, I caught
sight of Mr. Boone and a woman I presumed was his wife. They were walking ahead of
me. Although I didn’t get a look at her face she seemed like an average middle-aged
woman. The thought occurred to me that she might not be his wife. Maybe he was
having an affair, felt guilty about it, and wanted to leave his wife the money. That seemed
awfully involved. My suspicions broadened. Had he taken something to induce a heart
attack? My mind was running away with me.
Should I try to meet the woman? Should I run up and urge Mr. Boone to fill his prescription?
I couldn’t believe he was prepared to go through with his plan. If he didn’t fill
the prescription, the die was cast. I imagined him dying somewhere from a massive heart
attack. I’d give you maybe two months, Mr. Boone— less if you use the stairs or run for
a bus.
I watched as he stopped near the exit and pulled out my business card and prescription.
He paused a moment, then nonchalantly tore them up and tossed them in the trash
can. Catching up with his wife outside the door, he disappeared down the street. She
never looked behind.
30
SCOPE 2009
Elizabeth D. Tate
Department of Neurology
2nd Place Prose

Rolling up the Rug
The red living-room rug had to be rolled before we could sell your house,
so dad stood on one side and I stood on the other
we gathered the ends and the fringe and we gathered up
the rug and on each shoulder lifted and carried it
above our heads and out the door to the truck.
What I never knew was beneath the rug lay the most marvelous
hardwood floor that I had never known in my life,
bright and beautiful and strong
clean and bright like the oak trees you showed me in the backyard
fresh as I know it was on a day before I was born
when you laid it 70 years ago when you built this home and moved here after the war.
In the same way I saw them draw up the sheet after you died and pull
the tube from your abdomen and remove the catheter and you had always been
grandma to me and beautiful yes but your body too had to be rolled and
gathered up and carried away but before
they moved you I saw your stomach and your navel and both were
bright and beautiful and strong
clean and bright like the oak trees you showed me in the backyard
fresh as I know they were on a day before I was born
when you laid for the first time 70 years ago in the home you built after the war.
Blaine Eubanks, M.D.
Class of 2008
3rd Place Poetry
SCOPE 2009 31

32
SCOPE 2009
The Scenic Stream (Fish Thought)
Photography
Brandon Hamm
Class of 2012

Day Dream
The lights dim
A rare hush then
Blinding multitude of color
As the first note sounds
Amidst the thunderous roar
He waits for the hands
To go mute,
Says his introductions,
Plays with shaky hands
And tremulous heart
Nerves gnarl around
Pressure, twists about
Heat from the lights
And he is sweating
But the moment is radiant
And lasts til the last
Note goes blue and dies
With the lights
And the crowd
Matthew Ashley
Class of 2009
SCOPE 2009 33

34
SCOPE 2009
Grazing Sheep
Oil painting
Kelsey Thornton
Community

Promise Made, Promise Kept
“What do you want to do?” the nurse asks.
What do I want to do? I want to do anything but this, be anywhere but here. I
don’t want to watch the heart monitor anymore. I don’t want to hear the rhythm of
your heart flutter. I don’t want to be standing in an ICU. I don’t want to call my
brothers again with even more bad news. I don’t want to hear Mom cry. I don’t want
to answer this question, Dad, I really don’t.
Time telescopes in on itself, fractures, and ruptures backwards. I want to be 6
years old on a beach in West Dennis, jumping through the waves with my hand in
yours. I want to be 10, standing near your family’s farm in Feeding Hills and hear how
you fetched the cows in before the Great Hurricane of 1938. I want to be 12, sitting on
the top eave of the house, holding a can of paint while you hung over the side painting
the last, almost inaccessible place above the garage. I want to be a teenager, bicycling
down to the field where you hit fungo after fungo after fungo to my brothers on crystal
clear New England summer eves. I want to be an adult, listening to your World War II
stories and your experiences in Scheinfeld and Nordhausen, how at the latter you heard
how starving Jewish prisoners managed to sabotage the Nazi’s V2 rockets, probably
saving thousands of lives and maybe even the war. I want to be in college, hearing your
reassuring voice on the phone during finals week. I want to be any age and hear your
fine Irish tenor. I want to watch you read the Economist and relate some of the topics
back to lectures from the Jesuits at Boston College, which the GI Bill got you into, and
your hard work got you out with a magna cum laude. I want to hear your vast stories of
baseball lore and your passion for the skills of the game (and your love for the Red Sox,
no matter how hard it was, until, finally, 2004 came). I want to hear you talk to your
grandchildren, your laughter suffused with love. I want to see you happy and well, getting
stronger after you and Mom moved in with me 3 and a half years ago, losing the
stress of living alone, getting better, eating regularly again, even putting away your cane.
We went everywhere together, to Farmer’s Market, to breakfast, to the hardware store,
to get ice cream on a hot summer’s night. You laughed again. You smiled at Mom.
Normal things. Before the myeloma came.
“Do you want to draw blood for more tests? We might be able to stabilize him for
a few hours. What do you want to do?” the nurse asks again, my blue Power of
Attorney sticks out from the bottom of her clipboard. Time reverses with a jolt,
screaming to a stop as my heart breaks.
I teach medical students and residents. I listen to the clinicians in my department.
I know what the choices are. I know the sepsis is progressing. I know your kidneys have
shut down and your liver is failing. I know the priest has come and gone. I know the
SCOPE 2009 35

attending has gone home. I know we owe the senior resident an incalculable debt
because he tracked me down when we were leaving to get Mom some rest. “I don’t like
how some of these labs look,” he said, “Stay a while.” And he knew and I knew what
he meant. You would have been without us, Dad. We would have harbored regrets forever.
I know what you want, Dad, now I just, just?, just have to do it.
“Let him go” I say softly, reluctantly, hearing your wishes as clearly as if you were
whispering them into my ear, knowing you trusted me to do this, wanting to be sure
your wishes would be honored, so stronger, surer, I say again, “let him go.”
36
And we do.
The nurse steps back.
My mother weeps.
Robert Frost’s poem “Out, Out” catapults into my mind, the words scorching from
my New England school days — a farm hand lies dying on a kitchen table:
SCOPE 2009
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then — the watcher at his pulse took a fright.
No one believed. They listened to his heart.
Little – less – nothing! — and that ended it.
Your heart wavers, grows erratic, beats.......and stops. A few months shy of 85
years. You said you wouldn’t live through this winter, and less than 2 hours before the
Spring Solstice arrives you are gone. Never mind that the cup that hung on the end of
the cattle trough on your childhood farm would now be out of the dark shadow of the
winter freeze and into the thinnest promise of spring sunshine, a harbinger your family
waited for every year. Never mind that the snowdrops have their white heads up
through the frost. Never mind that the sap runs in the Sugar Maples. It’s time. With
winter comes death, with spring Resurrection. You have always believed, you have
always been comforted.
Thanks Dad, for all of your gifts, but now thanks especially for this gift of certainty.
Of all the love and stories and lessons and examples that helped me to good things and
spared me from bad, this ranks high. You told me what you wanted if this ever happened.
You told me “don’t you dare let me live on a machine”. You told me this was
your decision. Thank you, thank you. It’s hard enough watching you die. It’s hard
enough watching Mom’s life fall apart. It’s hard enough knowing that starting tonight
while you will always be with me, you will never again be there. Thank you for making
this decision for me, for letting me grieve alone without the extra crushing burden of
wondering whether it was right, of agonizing over what you might have wanted, of
second-guessing myself forever. Even now, you are a good example, a good teacher.

I pray I’ll see you later, in some other reality, and you’ll smile, say you were sorry to
put me in this position, but then say “you did well”. But now, your pulseless hand grows
cold. Mom takes off her rings to put your ring on her finger, the ring she gave you 58
years and 6 months ago, then puts her rings back on to hold yours close to her.
I think of what your grandfather, Thomas Burke, from Galway might say if he
stood here with us — “slán agus beannacht u do chara” (farewell and blessings from a friend)
or, perhaps, “slán agus beannacht le bauireamh an tsaoil” (farewell to the worries of life).
I don’t want to be here. I couldn’t be anywhere else.
Sandra L. Shea, Ph.D.
Department of Family and Community Medicine
3rd Place Prose
SCOPE 2009 37

38
SCOPE 2009
Ice Chandelier
Photography
Paula Heine
Department of Education & Curriculum

Two of You
Listening
All alone on
The floor and
Yearning for
More…
Of the
Two of you.
The two in you.
Save the world one
Face at a time with one
Mountain to climb…to
The two in you. And all
My dreams will fall into
Place when I get back
To the space…with
The two of you
Matthew Ashley
Class of 2009
SCOPE 2009 39

Navy Pier
Oil Painting
Kelsey Thornton
Community
First Place Art
SCOPE 2009 40