A Vision of Health Care
Medical student Rucha Borkhetaria shares a photograph that represents her view of an ideal physician.
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
Penn State College of Medicine
Rucha is a first generation Indian-American medical student and is a member of The Penn State College of Medicine class of 2023. She completed her undergraduate degree at The College of New Jersey in Biology and minored in Public Health. In her free time, she enjoys photography, reading, and painting. She loves to drink new teas and explore new areas. For her, photography is a personal journey that leads to new connections, creative expression, and the ability to find deeper meaning within each moment.
The Human Touch
Medical student Rooshi Parikh writes about the power of human connection through a small ritual performed between a physician and a patient.
Dark Sea
Medical student Lindsey Wright explores the stark contrast of love and grief after the loss of her father to cancer and finds solace in poetry and painting.
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.
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.
Medical Student Contributing Writer
Texas Tech University Health Science Center
I’m Alesia Voice, a third year medical student at TTUHSC. I’ve been writing for a long time, mostly personal and creative pieces. I began sharing many personal reflections and narratives about my life happenings and medical school experiences on my blog The Third Voice in 2018 and have since began sharing my poetry there as well. My goal in my writing as well as in my future medical practice is to tell the truth... the good, the bad, and the ugly.