Surgery: Beauty and Violence
Melinda Staub reflects on surgery as a both violence and healing, delving on medicine’s intricate ethical and practical landscape. Through an acrylic painting, she demonstrates her reflections on this topic.
Arts and Poetry
This category contains poems and art pieces, which are also tagged under their respective themes in other cateogries.
Medical Student Contributing Writer
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
Melinda is an incoming general surgery resident at Indiana University School of Medicine. She is interested in medical education and addressing gender and racial disparities in medicine.
Misery: A Small Collection of Patients’ Stories
Dr. Marissa Mayfield uses a trio of poems to teleport readers into the reality of medical crises and highlight the need for empathy in healthcare.
Another Chronic Painer
Dr. Ervin Anies introduces a reverse poem to help delve into the multifactorial and complicated picture that is treating chronic pain. His poem reflects the struggles and triumphs a provider can encounter while dealing with chronic pain patients.
76-Year-Old with a Neck Mass
This piece is a reflection of the first few months of Sriya’s clinical years experience. There are a thousand different stories all happening at the same time in the same hospital, and each of them has plenty to learn from and cherish. This piece is a reflection on the privilege that we get as learners and future providers to learn about and from others’ stories.
Her Story Too
Christopher Awad uses poetry to underline how a rare diagnosis inadvertently overshadowed his patient’s unique story on a neurology rotation.
One Question More
Medical student Varesh Gorabi is reminded of the importance of empathy during a seemingly routine clinic visit.
I Am Here and Alive
Dr. Ervin Anies explores the struggles and emotional turmoil of medical training, ultimately finding acceptance and self-worth.
How Literature Transformed an Engineer into a Doctor
Medical student Bassel Salka finds opportunities to improve health care by reading works of humorists, fiction writers, and philosophers.
Orders, Consults, Notes
Intern Ervin Anies assesses the expectation versus the reality of the responsibilities medical students and residents are expected to manage.
Yearning for Yesterday
Shivani Sundaram, a third-year medical student, explores the need for humanity and patience in the face of algorithms and checkboxes.
Love Language
Medical student Saud Rehman writes a poem about understanding other people.
All-American Reject
In a spoken word piece, medical student Hannah Clarke writes about her experiences being a medical student in an unjust healthcare system run by unjust hospital corporations.
Outreach Managing Editor
Case Western Reserve University
Hannah Clarke is a native of Philadelphia, PA but fully embraces her West Indian roots. She completed her Bachelor in French Literature and Master of Public Health at Case Western Reserve University, where she is now attending medical school. She enjoys teaching sexual & reproductive health, gardening, and cooking.