The Ring On My Hand
This creative piece explores the internal dialogue that a gay patient has with himself when his provider fails to use inclusive language and offers a question that probes disclosure.
Arts and Poetry
This category contains poems and art pieces, which are also tagged under their respective themes in other cateogries.
Resident Contributing Writer, Columnist
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
Kenneth is beginning his residency at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and recently graduated from the Uniformed Services University. While in medical school he was the architect and original author of a longitudinal, peer-led curriculum aimed to foster conversations about bias, racism, sexism, lgbt discrimination, and inclusion in medicine. His interests include health equity, promoting diversity and inclusion, and health professions education.
Smoke
Medical student Jake Bardell poetically epitomizes the art of medicine: navigating the nuances that lie beyond the logical and algorithmic thinking expected of doctors.
Yellow
Medical student Lindsey Nae Wright discusses the unique and life-altering experience of practicing the physical exam on her dying father. Her experience has turned the happy color yellow into something darker.
One Day
Alicia Pugh writes a poem that reflects on how our backgrounds impact the way we view our patients.
The Pause
Katherine Panushka asks readers to reflect and acknowledge that our patients’ stories extend beyond their final moments in her poem, “The Pause.”
Mourning’s Glory
Lindsey Nae Wright reflects on mourning the losses that come with being a medical student.
His Perception
Medical student Alicia Pugh describes a conspicuous encounter with a patient that typified the lingering undercurrent of microaggresions against professionals of color. Read more to see how she responded to this experience.
Being
As a storyteller, the author vowed to lead with the person’s name in an effort to uplift the subject of the story. This all changed when the author began anatomy lab during medical school.
I Am
Searching for our identity and the discovery process behind it are quintessential human processes that almost all of us experience. Medical student Alesia Voice explores, through verse, her evolving identity-journey and how that strongly influences her road to physicianship.
When We Love
Unhealthy relationship exist in the world of health care and beyond. Medical student Alesia Voice explores, through this poem, how to operate within a significant imbalance in relationships.
Best Care Possible
Through his brief poem, medical student Allen Bell opines about the predictable responses of the health care establishment to physician burnout.
First Times in Medicine
Medical school is a series of firsts.
Medical Student Contributing Writer
University of South Carolina School of Medicine-Greenvile
Alexis originally hails from Montreal, by way of New Haven, Los Angeles, West Palm Beach and Baltimore, each of which he at one point called home. Before medical school, he worked as a professional actor, produced Christmas movies for the Hallmark Channel, and conducted theater-for-therapy workshops in South Africa and Swaziland. He has since created an acting-based curriculum to improve the communication skills of healthcare professionals, which educational research he has presented at multiple national conferences that include the ACEP and SAEM Annual Meetings. He attended Yale for his undergraduate B.A. and is presently a fourth year medical student pursuing an emergency medicine residency.