RESIDENT CHECKING KNEE REFLEXES

"An Artist in The University Medical Center"

Tulane University Press, N.O., La., l989

May H. Lesser

This patient has waited all day in the public hospital to be examined. First, his chart had to be found, and then a second set of x-rays made. It’s now late in the afternoon. The chief resident checks the patient’s knee reflexes, and I am reminded of the stained glass panel taken from an Italian church, now in Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The panel depicts Christ washing a poor man’s feet. The scene I’m watching now has the same solemn composition.