#  Harvard Otolaryngology Resident Alessandra Colaianni Published in the New York Times 

 





May 10, 2019

 

 

   ![Dr. Alessandra Colaianni portrait](/sites/g/files/omnuum8391/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/oto/files/colaianni.jpg?itok=JDhm9ODR) 

 

Fourth-year Harvard Otolaryngology resident [Alessandra Colaianni, MD](/people/alessandra-colaianni), recently published an editorial in the *New York Times*. This article shares her experience with a patient who had a rare disorder known as toxic epidermal necrolysis syndrome. This condition is a severe skin reaction, most often triggered by particular medications. Throughout the article Dr. Colaianni describes her experience with this patient and how a reunion between the two of them helped "shed a burden" she didn't realize she carried.

 "In my dreams she was a monster out of Greek mythology: eyes unseeing, skin flayed, mouth bleeding crimson; a howling mountain of pure pain made flesh that I alone was to face," Dr. Colaianni wrote. "I would awaken sweating before my 4 a.m. alarm, dreading the day’s tasks, fighting bile and self-hatred on every step of my icy walk across the Charles River to the hospital. During the day, I was the monster, her torturer."

 [Read on.](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/well/live/skin-medical-ethics.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share)



 

 

 



 

 

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