Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, I read books from across the U.S. to understand our divided nation. So you do the best you can while you try to gain some comfort with the uncertainty of it all. But it was a byproduct. So I hope that that's what we're embarking on. None of us knew what was happening. The show premiered 4 April 2014. And I said, "She's racist, I literally just said my name," and I repeated what happened. DAVIES: Yeah. You want to just describe what happened here? But one of the things that's interesting about the story, as you tell it, is that, you know, there was this imperative, as there typically are in families of - in battered families, to keep it secret, to keep the whole - keep a respectable front. And I should just note to listeners that this involves a subject that will - well, may be disturbing to some. DAVIES: Dr. Michele Harper is an emergency room physician. She was healthy. I mean, mainly we get that to make sure there's no infection causing the fever. This Week on The Literary Life Podcast. But I could do what I could to help her in that moment and then to address the institution as well. That's depleting, and it's also rewarding to be of service. And you write that while you knew violence at home as a kid, you know, you didn't grow up where - in a world where there was danger getting to school or in the neighborhood. Did they pull through the infection? They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central Philadelphia, when he told . When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi. There have been clear violations of that mission, deviation from that mission. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. You wrote a piece recently for the website Medium - I guess it was about six weeks ago - describing the harrowing work of treating COVID-19 patients. The pair married in Hawaii on December 10, 1992. And I remember one time when he was protecting my mother - and so I ended up fighting with my father - how my father, when my brother had him pinned to the ground, bit my brother's thumb. What that means is patients will often come in - VA or otherwise, they'll come in for some medical documentation that medically, they're OK to then go on to a sober house or a mental health care facility. Our mission is to get Southern California reading and talking. DAVIES: What was going on when you - what made you call that time? They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a . It's called "The Beauty In Breaking." It is the responsibility of everyone in the department. Nat Geo WILD. And you had not been in the habit of crying through a lot of really tough things in your life. THE BEAUTY IN BREAKING (Riverhead, 280 pp., $27) is the riveting, heartbreaking, sometimes difficult, always inspiring story of how she made this happen. Still reeling, Harper moved to Philadelphia to work at a hospital where she was eventually passed over for a promotion by an apologetic (white, male, liberal) department chair who said: I just cant ever seem to get a Black person or a woman promoted here. I didn't know why. I am famously bad at social media. If you have a question for her, please leave it in the comments and she may respond then. Sep 28. And, you know, while I haven't had a child that has died, I recognized in the parents when I had to talk to them after the code and tell them that their baby, that their perfect child - and the baby was perfect - had passed away, I recognized in them the agony, the loss of plans, of promise, the loss of a future that one had imagined. Dr. Harper has 25 years of experience in obstetrics and gynecology. Michelle Harper was born on the 16th of March, 1978. Summary. One of the grocery clerks who came in, a young Black woman, told me she didnt know if she had the will to live anymore. Each step along the way, there is risk - risk to him being anywhere from injured, physically, to death. She's an emergency medicine physician. And my mother said, well, she didn't want to pursue charges if it meant my brother was going to be incarcerated. But that night was the first time Harper caught a glimpse of a future outside her parents house. She received her medical degree from Stony Brook University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine and has . To say that the last year has been one of breaking, of brokennessbroken systems, broken lives, broken promiseswould be an understatement. Harper shares her poignant stories from the ER with Mitchell Kaplan. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a . So in that way, it's hard. Email this page. And I remember thinking - and it was a deep bite. She spoke to me via an Internet connection from her home. Brought up in Washington, DC, in an abusive family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. . 15 likes. She loves following patients through different phases of their lives, helping them to stay healthy and fulfilled. Can you just share a little bit of that idea? And one of the reasons I spoke about this case is because one may think, OK, well, maybe it's not clear cut medically, but it really is. And you - I guess, gradually, you kept some contact with your father, then eventually cut off Off contact altogether. It doesnt have to be this way of course. Michele's husband, Dr. Martin MacNeill, had withheld decades of secrets from his family - from mistresses and falsified transcripts to a hidden felony conviction - a history that bolstered the . HARPER: I do. Her Patients, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/books/the-beauty-in-breaking-michele-harper.html. and an older woman carrying the burdens of a sick husband and differently abled grandchild. At first glance, this memoir by a sexual assault survivor may not appear to have much in common with The Beauty in Breaking. But the cover of Chanel Millers book was inspired by the Japanese art of kintsukuroi, where broken pottery is repaired by filling the cracks with gold, silver or platinum. Turns out she couldn't, and the hospital legal told her that I was actually quoting the law. DAVIES: You know, the ER doctor has these intense encounters, but they're usually one-time events. 304 pp. Dr. Harper reflects on her journey from navigating a complicated family in Washington D.C. to attending Harvard, where she pursued emergency medicine and met her husband. My director's initial response was just, "Well, you should be able to somehow handle it anyway. That is not acceptable, and yet these situations happen constantly. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR. Washington University School of Medicine, MSCI. By The Literary Life. HARPER: Yeah. But she wasn't waking up, so I knew I was going to have to transfer her anyway. While she was fighting for survival, I felt that what I could do, what the others of us could do, is not only help her find health again. It certainly has an emotional toll. That's the difference. Did you feel more appreciated in the Bronx? The past few nights shes treated heart and kidney failure, psychosis, depression, homelessness, physical assault and a complicated arm laceration in which a patient punched a window and the glass won. She is affiliated with Saint Francis Medical Center. And it was impetus for me to act because it's one thing to realize. Because she's yelling for help." I mean, there was the mask on your face. Her story begins with an introduction to her dysfunctional family, her childhood of physical abuse, and her . And so when I was ordering her tests, I didn't need to order liver function tests. Everyone just sat there. She has taken on many leadership roles . Each chapter introduces us to a different case, although Harper never boils people down to their afflictions. She is an emergency medicine physician who has written a new memoir about her life and experiences. Dr. Michele Harper is an emergency medicine physician. Michele Harper is a female African American emergency room physician in an overwhelmingly male and white profession. So it felt like there was nothing left to do but continue to live in silence because there was going to be no rescue. HARPER: Well, what it would have entailed - in that case, what it would have entailed was we would have had to somehow subdue this man, since he didn't want an exam - so we would have to physically restrain him somehow, which could mean various nurses, techs, security, hold him down to get an evaluation from him, take blood from him, take urine from him, make him get an X-ray - probably would take more than physically if he would even go along with it. We want to know if the patient's OK, if they made it. And you wrote that before the recent protests and demonstrations, which have prompted a lot more focus on the nation's experience with slavery and racial injustice. She wanted us to sign off that she was OK because she was trying to get her her career back, trying to get sober. And just to speak to this example, I was going for a promotion, a hospital position, going to remain full-time clinical staff in the ER but also have an administrative position in the hospital. HARPER: At that time, I saw my future as needing to get out and needing to create something different for myself. So it never felt safe at home. I subsequently left the hospital. But I think there's something in this book about what you get out of treating these patients, the insight of this center of emergency medicine that you talk about. And my staff - I was working with a resident at the time who didn't understand. Harper tells her story through the lives of people she encounters on stretchers and gurneys patients who are scared, vulnerable, confused and sometimes impatient to the point of rage. But everyone heard her yelling and no one got up. So the only difference with Dominic was he was a person considered not to have rights. He didn't want to be evaluated. It is not graphic, but it is in some respects troubling. And the police did show up. So they're recycled through some outside company. The other part of me was pissed off that she felt so entitled to behave so indecently. When I was in high school, I would write poetry, she says. He didn't want to be examined. My guest is Dr. Michele Harper. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the . And that description struck me. My trainee, the resident, was white. . And I remember thinking to myself, what could lead a person to do something so brutal to a family member? And it's the end of my shift. I'm hoping that we will. Is it different? In another passage, Harper recounts an incident in which a patient unexpectedly turns violent and attacks her during an examination. 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