Pulse is an online magazine that uses stories and poems from patients and health care professionals to talk honestly about giving and receiving medical care.

Pulse is also an online community, a chance for patients, doctors, nurses, social workers—everyone—to come together, share our experiences in health care, and explore our common wish for a humane system of health for all.

Despite the large numbers of health magazines and medical journals, few openly describe the emotional and practical realities of health care. And despite the shortcomings of our health system, there are few forums where patients and professionals can listen to one another, and where different health disciplines can meet on common ground.

We at Pulse believe that our stories and poems have the power to bring us together and promote compassionate health care.

An issue of Pulse will arrive every week or two via e-mail with one story or poem. The e-mail will also contain a link to the Pulse web site, where you, the reader, can post comments, read archived issues, and learn how to submit your own stories and poems.  In the future, this web site will also run features that describe how our health system works—and sometimes doesn’t—and talk about how it got this way.

Pulse is being launched by the Department of Family and Social Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, with help from colleagues and friends around the state and around the country. (See About Us.) We are doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, patients, students, editors and writers.

It’s free!  And by giving us a little information about yourself, you can also become a Friend of Pulse, retrieve past issues and learn how to submit your own stories or poems.

For the moment, our Department is supporting the cost of Pulse: we are also looking for additional support from foundations and individual donors. Since we want Pulse to generate a dialogue that is open and free from bias, we are not seeking advertising from companies that have vested financial interests in health care.

Yes, once you become a Friend of Pulse you are invited to send us the e-mail addresses of as many friends as you want, and we will put them on Pulse’s mailing list.  We will make sure that no one receives duplicate mailings, and we won’t sell our e-mail list to marketers.  Of course, anyone can unsubscribe at any time.

Become a Friend of Pulse, then click on the Submissions link to find out.