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NORTH DAKOTA MEDICINE
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND HEALTH SCIENCES
CHARLES E. KUPCHELLA, President, University of North Dakota
H. DAVID WILSON, Vice President for Health Affairs
Dean, School of Medicine and Health Sciences
WRITERS Pamela Knudson, Amanda Scurry
CONTRIBUTORS Blanche Abdallah, Wendy Opsahl
GRAPHIC DESIGN John Lee, Victoria Swift
PHOTOGRAPHY Chuck Kimmerle, Richard Larson, Wanda Weber
COVER ART John Lee
www.ndmedicine.org
DESIGN Eric Walter
CONTENT Amanda Scurry
NORTH DAKOTA MEDICINE (ISSN 0888-1456; USPS 077-680) is published five times a year (April, July, September, December, February) by the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Room 1000, 501 N. Columbia Road Stop 9037, Grand Forks, ND 58202-9037.
Periodical postage paid at Grand Forks ND.
Printed at Fine Print Inc., Grand Forks, ND.
All articles published in NORTH DAKOTA MEDICINE, excluding photographs and copy concerning patients, can be reproduced without prior permission from the editor.
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Three Pound Miracle
So ended the newborn lecture.
The attending physician
Moves us students aside,
The brand new mother
Taking our place at the incubator.
Her hands clasped to her chest
Suppressing impulse to touch
The three pound miracle
Inside the glass case.
“Chance of survival?” says
The physician, for his
Students’ ears only.
“Ten percent, at the most.”
Eyes of the mother
Hold tight to her child.
A whole ten percent
Chance for life.
“As you may notice,
Tape covers its eyes
Which are still fused
Into one. Quite like a Cyclops.”
Mother’s lips soften
Drawing into a smile.
Why the tape?
Must be to protect his eyes
From those bright glaring lights.
“With lungs like that,
So underdeveloped,
Three days
Is the most it’ll survive.”
Her hand caressing the glass,
The mother sighs. With her tiny,
Tiny beloved,
She has this moment,
And the next, and
The next.
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