Dr. Michele Harper is a career ER physician who has recently written a book sharing her most memorable stories of emergency medicine. Her book is titled "The Beauty in Breaking". Michele Harper is a graduate of Harvard University and the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. She was chief resident at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx and has worked in several emergency medicine departments in the Philadelphia area where she lives today. The book isn't only a chronicle of patient encounters in an ER department, her writing also shares how she has grown emotionally and learned from her patients to help her overcome painful experiences in her own life.
Pain, trauma and adversity are all part of the human experience. While it may be possible to live a lifetime without confronting life's more scathing realities, it is unlikely. Adversity comes in many forms, from assault to abuse, to poverty, and injustice and everything in between. Sadly, there is no shortage of methods humans use to be cruel to each other. Not all adversity is equal. Some struggles are far more tragic than others, some people have more tools at their disposal to prevail over their difficulties, some are privileged enough to have a support system when tragedy hits and some just have the good fortune of a timely outside intervention. Most of us do not advertise the struggles we are working to overcome, but it is probably fair to say that almost everyone you encounter is being tried by unseen forces.
In Dr. Harper's writing, we are reminded of the grace offered to us by the universe. If we take the time to reflect, listen to others, we can pull gems of information that can inspire us, help us heal, help us heal others. The answers we seek, may come from unlikely sources. Each encounter is a gift if we approach it with an open mind and open heart.
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