By Peg Newman
Because I worked full time and had a long commute to the hospital, the chaplaincy training program allowed me to do all but four of my weekly practicum hours on the Friday night overnight shift, 5 p.m. to 9 a.m. At the end of my training year, Kathy invited me to join the staff as a per diem chaplain working Friday nights. I was elated.
Because most chaplains worked during the day, when I worked, I was the only chaplain on duty. During the evening, I visited patients who had asked to see a chaplain, and I responded to emergencies. Later in the evening, when visiting hours were over and many of the patients turned their lights off hoping to sleep, I was only responsible for emergency situations. I was able to sleep when I wasn’t needed anywhere.
Many emergencies involved death or dying – supporting family members when a loved one was dying or had died, baptizing babies at risk of dying, spending time with anxious patients who couldn’t sleep because they had recently received frightening diagnosis, etc. I was always paged to code traumas in the ER. Codes were serious, usually life-threatening cases – anything from a GSW (gunshot wound) or an MVA (motor vehicle accident) to a particularly serious heart attack or stroke.
Most student chaplains didn’t like overnights because they were unpredictable and, at least at first, they weren’t comfortable handling emergencies. I, on the other hand, was very comfortable and liked the unpredictable nature of the work. What I wasn’t good at were the routine daytime visits to people who hadn’t specifically asked to see a chaplain and to people who just wanted to chat. The same way it took time for many student chaplains to be comfortable overnight, I eventually became comfortable with the more routine visits.
We were trained as interfaith chaplains, which meant learning the beliefs, rituals, and expectations of every religion. Though familiar with the concept and some of the worship practices of interfaith work, I was not familiar with many of the rituals and beliefs of each religion. Most of the other student chaplains had spent time in hospitals and were familiar with the way hospitals work, and the kind of medical situations chaplains encountered. I had a lot to learn.
I was blessed with a mentor who was a retired M.D. who went back to school and became a minister and a chaplain. Cal taught me about some of the medical situations I would encounter as well as the reasons behind hospital policies and practices. He also helped me to grow by listening and making occasional comments when I told him about challenging encounters.
I am writing this chapter after 22 years of Friday nights. I could fill a book with stories, but instead, I’ve chosen a few that taught me important lessons.
God’s Presence
I was paged at 5 a.m. to support a woman who had been called to come to the hospital because her husband was dying. Entering the room, before I could say a word, the woman, letting me know I was not the person she wanted to see, said “Where’s the priest?”
Startled, I thought to myself, “Fine. I’ll just call Fr. Peter and go back to sleep.”
Instead, I said, “I’m the only chaplain in the hospital right now. I’m Catholic but if your husband’s need is for a sacrament, there is a priest on call for emergencies.”
Her face softened a bit as she took in my words. Her puffy eyes told me she had been crying and probably had not gotten much sleep for a few nights running. She looked about 40 and was slim with stylish short brown hair and blue-green eyes. She was wearing jeans and an over-sized white tailored shirt that looked like it could be her husband’s. She seemed much too young for the role of a widow. Ravaged by his illness, her husband looked much older, but in fact, he was only 42.
Walking to the patient’s bedside, I could hear the rattling sound made by his breathing. The phlebotomist came in to check on his I.V. so I took the opportunity to step out of the room to talk to the nurse. She assured me that he had several hours left, maybe even a couple days. When I went back into the room, I pulled a chair next to the woman who was sitting by her husband’s side. I explained that I’d like to let our priest get a bit more sleep if that was okay. Calmer now, she agreed to wait. We exchanged names. Her name was Lori, and her husband was Gary.
“Tell me about your husband,” I invited. I learned that he was a wonderful man, an amazing father and a loving husband. He had been fighting cancer for over a year, bravely, rarely complaining. In and out of consciousness, Gary mumbled something that Lori took to mean he was asking about their 10-year-old son Trevor.
As Gary drifted back into his deep sleep, Lori explained, “Today was an important baseball game for his team. Gary has always gone to his games. They’re very close. Gary always said he wanted to be there for games and for everything else because he knows teenagers pull away. He said he wanted to give Trevor a foundation while he was young.”
Sue paused, with tears rolling down her cheeks she said, “Gary will never again see Trevor up at bat.” Pausing, she added, “There’s so many things he will never see.”
After a while, I made us each a cup of tea and we pulled our chairs over to a small table across the room. Quietly, we talked about the future – how she might talk to her son about death, how she was going to cope herself, who she could rely on for support and how much time she could take off from work. When I asked if she thought of God as a source of support, she responded, “I’m not much of a church goer.”
I replied, “Church is just church. You don’t have to go to church to believe in God, to know God is here with you.”
I encountered many people who stopped going to church, each for his or her own reason, but I assumed that seeds were once planted and with some attention, they could easily grow and reconnect a person to God.
I called Fr. Peter at 7 a.m. and he arrived 20 minutes later. Tall and slender with dark hair, he looked very priestly in his black suit with its white square just below his Adam’s apple. No one administers the Sacrament of the Sick quite the way Fr. Peter does. He calls Jesus, “Our Lord,” and speaks of him with great love and intimacy. He begins by talking about the way Jesus used his hands in healing people and then he invites everyone present to participate in the sacrament by laying their hands upon the patient. Then he talks about Our Lord’s love for those who are sick and Our Lord’s special calling to minister to the sick. He proclaims the forgiveness of sin and anoints patients’ foreheads and hands with chrism (holy oil). All present pray the Our Father. The holiness of the moment often evokes tears.
This particular morning, Fr. Peter administered the sacrament as lovingly as he always does. Afterward I asked Lori, “Would you like me to stay with your husband so you can talk to Fr. Peter?’
They walked over to the other side of the room, a double room that was now used as a single. I could hear her sobbing and asking him, “But why would God do this? Why would God allow this? We have a ten-year-old son who is going to lose his father. Doesn’t God care? Why Father? Why? How can this be? I don’t understand.”
Fr. Peter began to say something, but Gary made some noises that sounded like he might be in distress. Sue quickly pulled herself together and went to his side. She adjusted his bed and put on the call light to summon the nurse who came right away. They discussed his medication. The nurse changed the way he was getting his oxygen. This took several minutes. Finally, Gary looked more comfortable. Lori sat next to him and took his hand. Her shoulders relaxed, and like Gary, she seemed to be breathing more easily.
During all this time, Fr. Peter stood to the side watching. I took a seat next to Sue, offered my reassurance that Gary seemed much more comfortable and then suggested she return to her conversation with the priest. She looked at him with a glower and then said to me angrily, in a voice he was meant to hear, “There’s no point talking to him. He doesn’t know anything anyway. He doesn’t have answers to any of my questions. There’s no point.”
Not knowing what to say, responding only to the pain in her voice, I touched her arm with my hand. She began to cry and said, “Please don’t leave me.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I replied. She leaned over and put her head on my shoulder, and I held her while she sobbed.
I could see Fr. Peter still standing off to the side. He looked awkward standing there so after a couple more minutes, I said to Lori, “Should we tell Fr. Peter it’s okay to leave? Or maybe you want to say something else?’
Before she could respond, Fr. Peter said, “That’s okay,” implying that he had no intention of leaving. I wondered how Peter managed to just stand there all that time. If it were me, I’d be shifting my weight from foot to foot, probably fidgeting with something, but he just stood there quietly waiting. Minutes passed.
Finally, Lori got up and slowly walked over to where Fr. Peter was standing. “I’m sorry for what I said.”
He replied, “There’s no reason to be sorry. I’m glad you could speak so freely. It’s me who should apologize. I know I should have answers to your questions, but there are some things I do know, and I really want to tell you what they are.”
Lori was listening as he continued, “Just before you went to help your husband, you asked me, ‘Where is God while he is lying there like this?’” Answering the question Peter said, “I could see that God was right there in the love you share, in the love you’ve been sharing in all the years of your marriage.”
Fr. Peter continued, “And God is even more visible in your son. God will be with your son in his baseball game this morning.”
Fr. Peter paused a moment and added, “The nurse told me that your sister is coming to be with you this morning. God will be coming here with her. He will be with you whenever you turn to him for help.”
Instead of sobbing, Lori cried quietly, letting her tears roll down her cheeks. I hoped she was feeling God’s love or appreciating the love God gave her through her family.
I cherish the lesson Fr. Peter taught us that day. There is so much we don’t know, so much we can’t understand, but what is important is what we do know. There are a few things I do know with great certainty. I know that I am deeply and profoundly loved by God. I have felt it. I am certain of it. And I am certain about God’s goodness and generosity and the unconditional nature of God’s love and mercy. The mystery of the things beyond my understanding are far less troubling when I can hold onto the things that I know with certainty. I’ve passed this lesson on to many patients.
The Pink Ribbed Sweater
One night I was paged to a code trauma in the ER. A 15-year-old boy had come in via med flight from an outside hospital. He had gone skiing with his friend and his friend’s family, and he was injured in an accident. I knew it had to be more serious than broken bones for a helicopter to transport him from the small community hospital north of Boston to a city teaching hospital that offered more specialized care.
By the time Paul’s parents, Marilyn and Greg, arrived at the hospital, Paul had died. I met them at the front desk and escorted them to the private waiting area we used for the most serious cases, the ones in which privacy was most important. Even before we introduced ourselves to each other, they wanted to know how their son Paul was doing. I explained that not being a medical provider, I couldn’t give them medical information, but I could let the doctor know they had arrived so that he could come and talk to them.
It wasn’t long before I returned with the doctor. Marilyn and Greg were sitting side by side, so he pulled up a chair across from them.
He began, “I am so sorry, but we couldn’t save your son.”
At first all Marilyn could say was no. “No. It can’t be. No. No.” She began to sob, occasionally saying “no” as she took a breath.
Looking at Greg, the doctor continued, “We did everything we could. So did the EMT’s. They did CPR in the helicopter, trying everything they could to get him here where they hoped we could save him. And we tried everything.”
Marilyn looked at the doctor, apparently wanting to hear what they tried. He continued, “We inserted a breathing tube, used electric shock, tried medications. Nothing worked. I’m so very sorry.”
After a pause he asked, “Do you have any questions?”
Greg looked at Marilyn, and saw she had nothing to ask, so he responded by shaking his head no. The doctor said he would be available if they wanted to talk to him again. Once more, he said how sorry he was and left. The whole conversation couldn’t have been longer than a couple of minutes.
Greg tried to fight his tears but then gave in to them. Husband and wife, both were too distraught to offer each other any comfort. The shock was too intense.
These are the moments I find most difficult. I hate feeling helpless. I sat down next to Marilyn, put my hand on her shoulder, and like the doctor, told her how sorry I was.
As if crying was contagious, I was barely able to contain my own tears. Determined to control my emotions, I set my gaze on the mother’s pink ribbed sweater. It was well-worn, a bit pilled from being washed many times. The sweater was fitted but not tight, a casual look that went well with Marilyn’s blue jeans. I noticed that she was slim and attractive. Her gasps for air brought me back into the reality of her grief. As she blew her nose, I pushed the small trash bin toward her.
I saw that Greg was trying to regain his composure. He looked at his wife but had no words to offer. In this moment of relative calm, I asked Greg and Marilyn if they would like to see their son. They looked at each other and nodded in agreement. I excused myself so I could see if the room had been cleaned and if Paul’s body was free of visible blood and arranged under clean sheets. I saw the nurses had everything ready.
When I returned to the waiting area, I was relieved to see that Marilyn and Greg were quietly talking to each other. When Marilyn saw me in the doorway, she responded with an acknowledging nod and a slight smile and then looked at her husband. She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows with a silent question that he understood. He turned to me and said, “I think we’re ready.”
I escorted them to the room. For a moment, there was silence. The couple stood together, looking at their son in disbelief. Then Marilyn gasped for a breath and said, “No,” just as she had when she first heard that Paul had died.
Her husband put his hand around his wife’s waist as if she might need him to hold her so she wouldn’t collapse. A moment later, she laid her head on her son’s chest. Her deep sobs returned. Greg had appeared to regain his composure, but the sound of his Marilyn’s sobs seemed more than he could bear. I heard him gasp as if he was trying to swallow his tears and his grief.
When Marilyn raised her head off her son’s chest, I gently took the boy’s hand from beneath the sheet and laid it at his side. His mother took his hand and said, “It’s still warm.”
“Can you tell me about your son?” I asked.
“He was really kind and smart,” Greg replied.
Marilyn nodded adding, “He’s so good. He’s a really good kid. Everybody likes him. He’s…” She couldn’t finish her sentence. She seemed to know she shouldn’t speak of her son in the present tense, but she wasn’t ready to speak of him in the past tense, the language that acknowledges death.
“He must have been a wonderful son,” I offered, inviting a response.
Greg nodded as his wife agreed, “He was very caring. A sweet kid even when he was a young boy. And a good brother. He has a little sister at home.” Pausing briefly, Marilyn added, “She’s going to be devastated.”
Marilyn and Greg were sitting at Paul’s bedside. I was standing closer to the door and could hear two nurses talking quietly about what a horrible situation it was. One had the shaky voice of a person trying not to cry. The mother’s cries and the reality of the boy’s death seemed to draw everyone into feeling a portion of the pain. I was moved by the nurse’s tears, and again, rested my eyes on the gentle pink of Marilyn’s sweater.
Seeing the trauma doctor pacing back and forth in the hallway, I thought perhaps he wanted to help, but didn’t know what to do.
Then a nurse came into the room and asked the parents if they had any questions for the doctor. They looked at each other and shook their heads. The father looked at the nurse and said, “I don’t think so.”
I wondered why the doctor didn’t come into the room. Coming in and offering a word or two of condolence seemed like a minimal gesture, the least he could do given the situation. Of course, I kept my critical thoughts to myself.
I asked the parents if they would like me to say a prayer. The boy’s mother responded, “Please.”
After a more formal prayer, I asked God to welcome home this wonderful young man. I tried to paint a picture of Jesus embracing this couple’s son with love, welcoming him home after a short life beautifully lived. I thanked God for the gift of his life and his love. I acknowledged his kindness and generosity, and his roles as brother, son and friend. And then I asked God for comfort for all those who would be grieving.
When I had the sense that it was the right time to help the parents say goodbye, I told them I would give them some privacy to say goodbye and assured them I’d be right there in the hallway if they needed anything. In a few minutes, leaving their son’s body behind, they emerged from the room.
The nurse brought a bag with Paul’s jacket, wallet, and a couple of other things and walked with us back to the room where they left their coats. In the hallway Greg asked me about making arrangements with a funeral home while the nurse quietly offered her sympathy to Marilyn. We hugged and then they left.
I headed toward the chapel to sit for a few moments. When I opened the door, I saw the doctor who had been pacing outside Paul’s room. I was deeply moved by the sight of him, sitting bent over with his face in his hands, quietly hiding his feelings. Not wanting to interrupt his solitude, I left as silently as I was able. I felt guilty that I had judged him. I knew I had learned an important lesson.
The next day, as I sat to write in my journal, I closed my eyes to reflect on the experience. The mother’s pink ribbed sweater came to mind. Obviously worn and washed many times it was nothing special, just a piece of everyday clothing for wintertime in New England. But there were moments when looking at it, it became the unlikely anchor that helped me stay grounded, safe from the emotions that threatened to draw me into the grief and sadness that, in turn, threatened to distance me from the needs of Paul’s parents.
When I shared my experience with another chaplain, his comment was, “The doctor needed a pink sweater.”
The Body
Over the years, I’ve trained many students preparing them to be on their own when they rotate through overnight shifts. I like to think that I am passing on to them some of what I’ve learned from others in the hospital as well as at Amory St.
A few summers ago, I worked on a Friday night with Matthew, a chaplaincy intern. Bright, funny and energetic, he was a 30-something seminarian studying to be a Catholic priest. He was a tall African American with a football player’s physique who walked with a confident stride.
Around midnight, we were paged to the ER where we learned that a 19-year-old man was brought in with a gunshot wound and was unlikely to survive.
The E.R. was the busiest I had ever seen it, so we decided to get out of the way and check back in 30 minutes to see if any family members were coming. When we came back, we learned that the young man had died, and his body was put in a small room on the other side of the ER, a quieter area where less serious cases are treated. We also learned that his grandmother and maybe some other family members were on their way.
I told Matthew we should go see how the body looked and make sure the room was prepared. He seemed to be listening carefully as I explained, “It’s good to have tissues, a couple chairs, and a pitcher of ice water. Often a few sips of water can calm people a bit. I also like to make sure the sheets and pillows are arranged nicely, that sort of thing.”
As we entered the room, I explained, “Usually, the nurses arrange the body and sheets, “but it’s always a good idea to check, especially, when it’s really busy.”
The room had sliding glass doors and a curtain inside that could be drawn for privacy. Entering, we saw that the room was spotless and noted that there were two boxes of tissues on a side table, but the patient’s body was covered in caked blood; he had not been cleaned at all. When I told one of the nurses that the family was going to be arriving momentarily and that the body hadn’t been cleaned, overwhelmed, she responded, “I’m sorry but I can’t do anything about that right now. It’s just too busy. I’ll get to it as soon as I can.”
I knew it might be a while before she’d have time. We had a choice. We could let the grandmother and anyone who came with her wait for some indefinite period of time. It would be hard for them to wait but we’d explain that it was unavoidable. The only alternative would be to clean up the body ourselves. I had been with dead bodies at Amory Street and often as a hospital chaplain, so I was very comfortable being with dead bodies. I had no idea how Matthew felt about this, and I didn’t want to overwhelm him. However, we didn’t have much time.
Wanting the decision to be Matthew’s, I gave him the choice. “We can wait for the nurse, or if you’re comfortable, we can clean the body and the room ourselves. I’ve done this sort of thing before, but if you’d rather wait, that would be completely understandable. We can sit with the family and talk to them, prepare them. That’s the choice most chaplains would make.”
“No,” Matthew said firmly, “If it were me, I wouldn’t want to wait. They’ll want to come in right away. I’ll be fine helping.”
I found some washcloths and towels that we could use to clean the blood off the body. We used pillows and blankets to hide the multiple gunshot wounds. The tube in his throat had to stay. By law, it couldn’t be removed until the medical examiner saw him. I explained that we always let the family know before they see a body that a breathing tube was used when they were trying to resuscitate their loved one and then we explain why it can’t be removed.
There wasn’t time for much conversation, but I was impressed as I watched Matthew move quickly, competently and respectfully. We did the best we could, as quickly as we could. When the family arrived, sooner than we would have liked, things looked a lot better.
The grandmother arrived with three other family members: an aunt, a sister and a cousin. We listened as they told us about the young man, his hopes and dreams, his sense of humor, his challenges and his many strengths. Feeling like we had gotten to know him just a bit, we prayed at the bedside and then waited in silence, giving the family time to say goodbye. Afterward, Matthew spent time alone with the grandmother and the aunt as I talked to the sister and the cousin outside of the room where I could answer their questions about what happens to the body, the role of the funeral home and so forth. I thought that Matthew and I made a good team; we helped the family begin the horrible grieving process with the knowledge that God was with them through it all.
Afterwards, as is commonly the practice, Matthew and I debriefed, sharing our thoughts and reactions, looking at what we said, what worked well and what didn’t. Matthew was calm, able to reflect on the experience without becoming overwhelmed with emotion. I asked if preparing the body had been hard for him. He said, “It all happened so quickly. I didn’t really have time to think about it. I just did it.”
It was 3 a.m. and we were both tired. I suggested we get some rest and meet back in the office at 7 a.m. unless we got another emergency page. When I saw Matthew at 7, I asked, “How’d you sleep?’
“I fell asleep right away, but I woke up at 5:30. I had this urge to talk to my brothers, to hear their voices. So, I called Derek, my little brother, first.”
“Yeah?” I asked, encouraging him to tell me about the call.
“He thought something was wrong. When I told him nothing was wrong, he couldn’t believe that I called him at 5:30 in the morning just to chat. But nothing was wrong, not really. I just wanted to talk.”
“You said brothers. More than one?”
“I called my other brother too. It was only a few minutes later. He thought something was wrong, too. It was hard to convince him that I was okay.”
“Did you tell him anything about last night?” I asked.
“A little. I didn’t want him to think I was crazy calling at that time, but I didn’t really want to talk about it. Like I said, I just needed to hear their voices.”
“I’m glad you called them. What made you reach out to them?
“I guess they give me a sense of…” Matthew paused and continued, “It’s like dying is just part of life. I think I wanted to feel more normal about it. My brothers know me better than anyone. I really didn’t think about why I wanted to call them, but being connected to them is being connected to my life. I don’t know if any of this makes sense.”
“It makes a lot of sense,” I replied. I wasn’t sure I knew precisely what he meant but I got the gist of it and admired the way he was grappling with everything the experience brought up for him. I continued, “You were great last night in dealing with both preparing the body and helping the family. And I’m glad you called your brothers.”
“Me too,” he responded, smiling a bit sheepishly.
I added, “Learning how to take care of ourselves is part of becoming a chaplain.”
Bearing Witness
The things I want to say about my work, though true, can sound like trite, overused phrases. The work is a blessing that enriches my life; it feeds my soul; it’s a privilege. It’s all true, usually. This particular night my pager was relentless in calling me from one situation to another. I was hungry and tired and wanted nothing more than to have my dinner and perhaps even get in a nap before the pager demanded my attention again. As I walked across the lobby to the coffee/sandwich shop, I was aware of the quiet. It settled me a bit.
During the day, the hospital bustles with activity. Elevators are crowded and often demand a long wait. Staff walk from place to place with a quick stride. Visitors add a chaotic dimension to the atmosphere. Some carry flowers or pizza or bundles of clothing and toiletries from home. Others carry heavy emotions you can see on their faces: worry, fear, sometimes grief. But at night, the hours I work, the contrast to daytime hours creates a calm atmosphere.
My only thoughts involved sandwich choices and whether to give in to the temptation to grab a small bag of deliciously crunchy and salty Cape Cod potato chips. Interrupting my thoughts, the pager beeped at me. The cryptic demand read: “Patient-end of life-wants chaplain for prayer. Fl 2, rm 43.”
I was near the entrance to the shop and could see there was no line where you order sandwiches. I was tempted to get my sandwich and then call the unit to see how urgently I needed to get there. Maybe I could eat first. Afterall, I reasoned, end of life could mean dying in ten minutes or it could mean dying sometime in the next couple weeks.
I took a deep breath, turned around and headed to the elevator hoping I could shed my hungry, selfish attitude and find my way back to my good-chaplain self.
Checking in with the nurse before going into the room, I asked, “Is she actively dying?” which was a way of asking if she was likely to die within hours rather than days. There are signs that tell us when the body is beginning to shut down.
“Yes. We think so.” The nurse replied. “She’s very weak but she’s still conscious. She sent her son and his family home. I promised them I’d call them when she passes if it happens tonight.”
“Thanks,” I said as I thought about her family being sent away. I wondered if she was trying to spare her family a long night sitting at her bedside or if she knew she was dying and wanted to be alone. It happens that way sometimes. Some people seem to be able to let go of life more easily when they are alone.
The nurse continued, “She’s been sick for a while. I think she’s ready to let go. She’s really a lovely woman. I paged you because she asked me if there was someone she could pray with.”
“Thanks,” I said, turning to go into the room.
I walked to the bedside. The lights had been dimmed but I could see that she was a slight woman with porcelain skin and fine white hair pulled back from her face. She looked like she was sleeping.
“Mary?”
She opened her eyes. “Are you the chaplain?”
“Yes,” I replied, glad I didn’t have to wake her.
“Good. Thank you for coming.”
I could hear that it was taking a lot of effort for her to talk and breathe. I wanted to spare her any unnecessary words. I asked, “The nurse told me you wanted me to pray with you. Is there anything special you would like me to pray for?”
“No, no, dear. I’m dying. I want to pray.”
“Can I take your hand?” I asked.
Mary nodded. Using all her energy, speaking only a few words at a time, gasping for air between the lines, she prayed:
Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Amen.
Surprised by Mary’s prayer, a childhood prayer I had prayed often when I was young, I was stunned by its relevance on this particular night. I wanted to ask Mary whether she “got it,” whether she knew this would likely be the night that she would die before she would wake.
Instead, I said, “That’s a lovely prayer, Mary. I know it well.”
“Yes.” Still gasping for air between every few words, she continued, “I’ve said that prayer every night, my whole life. I wanted to say it with someone tonight.”
Mary paused to catch her breath before closing her eyes and dismissing me with, “Thank you, dear.”
I leaned down and kissed Mary’s cheek, and said, “Sleep well.” There seemed little more to say. In the morning, I called the floor, and the nurse told me that Mary never woke up. She died quietly a few hours after I left. I was grateful that I’d had the opportunity to be part of her life’s end, a death as gentle as her spirit.
Peg Newman is a board-certified chaplain who lives and works at a large teaching hospital in Boston. She finished her training there in 2003 and has never left. Semi-retired, Peg is currently writing a memoir. When she is not working or writing, she enjoys reading, travel, and photography.