title: Prognosis: Poor: One Doctor's Personal Account of the Beauty and the Perils of Modern Medica
author: Frances Southwick
description: Frances Southwick, D.O. is a physician and non-fiction writer. Each step along her academic path, she has been inspired to write and share her experiences. Her work "Short Prose" was published in Spiritus Mundi, Colorado State University's Honors literary magazine. Her essay "How Patients Teach Their Doctors about Humanism in Medicine" was published the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine Magazine. Her co-authored article entitled "Exploring Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy in an Elderly Patient with Acute Anxiety Attack" was published in the West Virginia Medical Journal. Most recently, her essay, "Jude Asleep" was selected for the upcoming volume of Voices from the Attic, a publication from participants in Madwomen in the Attic writing courses at Carlow, University. She earned her B.A. in philosophy from Colorado State University, her D.O. from the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine and completed her family medicine residency training at UPMC Shadyside in Pittsburgh. Her most recent work, Prognosis: Poor, is her memoir that addresses the medical training process in the U.S. Dr. Southwick practices family medicine with special interest in Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine in Pittsburgh, PA. She teaches family medicine residents at Shadyside Hospital and co-leads a Balint group for University of Pittsburgh medical students. She lives with her wife Judith Avers and their beloved three gray cats. By sharing her life experiences, she aims to give validation, hope and peace to those in similar circumstances.
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  # Mrs Medwin
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Henry James
  
  
  This page copyright © 2002 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
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  ### 1
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
    
  "Well, we _are_ a pair!" the poor lady's visitor broke out to
  
  
  her, at the end of her explanation, in a manner disconcerting enough.
  
  
  The poor lady was Miss Cutter, who lived in South Audley Street,
  
  
  where she had an 'upper half' so concise that it had to pass, boldly,
  
  
  for convenient; and her visitor was her half-brother, whom she had not
  
  
  seen for three years. She was remarkable for a maturity of which every
  
  
  symptom might have been observed to be admirably controlled, had not a
  
  
  tendency to stoutness just affirmed its independence. Her present, no
  
  
  doubt, insisted too much on her past, but with the excuse,
  
  
  sufficiently valid, that she must certainly once have been prettier.
  
  
  She was clearly not contented with once — she wished to be prettier
  
  
  again. She neglected nothing t