Texas’ Other Death Penalty
A Galveston medical student at the University of Texas Medical Branch and PhD student at the Institute for the Medical Humanities, Rachel Pearson, describes life and death in the so-called safety net.
The first patient who called me “doctor” died a few winters ago. I met him at the St. Vincent’s Student-Run Free Clinic on Galveston Island. I was a first-year medical student then, and the disease in his body baffled me. His belly was swollen, his eyes were yellow and his blood tests were all awry. It hurt when he swallowed and his urine stank.