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Elissa Ely

Elissa Ely

Boston Globe

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On Match Day, a village of love

On Match Day, a village of love

For medical students, the envelope decides the next chapter. It also summons memories of everyone who helped along the way.

wednesday 10

Boston Globe

Elissa Ely

I felt healthy after my doctor’s appointment. Then the patient survey arrived.

I don’t believe for a minute the survey has my interests at heart, and certainly don’t believe it has my doctor’s.

21.02.2026 60

Boston Globe

Elissa Ely

Aging in place, for now

On loving a home that still fits — and knowing, somewhere in the back of your mind, that it won’t forever.

31.12.2025 10

Boston Globe

Elissa Ely

Falling into others’ arms

Dignity at life’s end and on a mountain trail.

15.11.2025 20

Boston Globe

Elissa Ely

When the hospital vending machine gives green lights for candy and chips

The plan had been to follow traffic lights toward health, only now they were facing the wrong direction.

20.10.2025 20

Boston Globe

Elissa Ely

The silent goodbyes at the clinic

Why undocumented patients stopped seeking care as our psychiatry clinic closed.

15.09.2025 20

Boston Globe

Elissa Ely

My love for mail, interrupted

Moral shock is nothing new these days. But this felt especially invasive.

16.08.2025 10

Boston Globe

Elissa Ely

My husband’s romance ... with his sourdough starter

For the most part, polygamy has been a compatible arrangement.

08.08.2025 10

Boston Globe

Elissa Ely

A life free of worry

Here was a life full of security — so lucky and so rare — without any worry that rebellion would drive his mother away.

24.07.2025 10

Boston Globe

Elissa Ely

From numbers to names in a forgotten graveyard

The facts are reported with such care, it is as if the researchers wore gloves to cradle the details.

31.05.2025 10

Boston Globe

Elissa Ely

Lessons learned in the waiting room

At a certain age, the parts of a single body that have lived in harmony for years start to separate and insist on their own specialists, and one...

14.04.2025 10

Boston Globe

Elissa Ely

A flash of light in a gray world

When the brothers stroll down the hall to chat before exams at this optometrist’s office, no one is surprised. The personal is part of the treatment.

15.03.2025 10

Boston Globe

Elissa Ely

An owl’s gift, extinguished

It was a comfort to watch the owl calmly watching us. Then one day he was gone.

03.02.2025 10

Boston Globe

Elissa Ely

Saying what was left unsaid

My mother is gone. How does one speak to a listener who can no longer hear?

18.01.2025 10

Boston Globe

Elissa Ely