Sriya Donthi (2 Posts)Medical Student Contributing Writer
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Sriya Donthi completed her Bachelors of History and Philosophy of Medicine and Biology at Case Western Reserve University, where she is now attending medical school. She has been writing poetry since the age of fifteen and enjoys finding ways in which the creative arts and her interest in medicine can connect. Her medical interests are in obstetrics/gynecology and health literacy education.
This piece is inspired by a patient encounter with a middle-aged woman who was recently diagnosed with a severe and malignant cancer. I saw her in the primary care setting, and she was undergoing chemotherapy at that time. She had a unique demeanor about her and she shared with me how she waited all her life to do the things she really wanted to do and now she was unable to do a lot of those things. She told me her and her friend now share a joke whenever they are debating doing something fun/risky/random in which they say “What are you waiting for, Chemo?”
Elise Kao MS3 encounters a struggling addiction patient in the Emergency Department who reinforces their determination to pursue psychiatry and advocate for forgotten patients.
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.
Shannon Fang, medical student, comments on the necessity of processing emotionally stressful encounters in medicine.
Medical student Medha Palnati describes barriers to care, and highlights the need for greater awareness and sensitivity in patient care.
Medical student Sabrina Lazar discovers a local MENA-owned grocery store that offers not only essential ingredients but also a sense of community.
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.
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.
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.
Christopher Awad uses poetry to underline how a rare diagnosis inadvertently overshadowed his patient’s unique story on a neurology rotation.
Dr. Michael Callegari assesses the teaching mantra in medicine, and the centrality of empathy in patient care.
Dr. Verjee recounts a poignant narrative of his and his medical student’s journey with a longtime patient, Margery, diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, ultimately revealing the profound impact of family medicine on both patients and healthcare professionals.
Mohamud Verjee, MD, MBA (1 Posts)Physician Contributing Writer
Weill Cornell Medicine, Qatar
A practicing family doctor, and academic family physician, Dr. Verjee initially qualified as a biochemist. Later as a medical graduate from the University of Dundee, Scotland, he completed postgraduate training as a general practitioner in England. He first started teaching medical students at Oxford University, from 1979. Migrating to Canada in 1994, he spent two years in Newfoundland and Labrador in Wilfred Grenville country before moving to Alberta, Canada. Joining the University of Calgary in 1997, he established a career in academic medicine before taking up a new faculty position in Qatar at Weill Cornell Medicine's international medical campus in 2007. He completed an MBA (Leadership & Sustainability) in 2016. An Associate Professor of Family Medicine in Clinical Medicine, he is an alumnus of the Harvard Macy Institute, Boston, United States, a Senior Research Fellow in Psychiatry at Clare College, Cambridge, United Kingdom, and a TEDx presenter. His widespread interests include endocrinology, women’s health, vaccination and immunization, diabetes mellitus, preventable blindness, narrative medicine, and poetry. Music, both classical and hard rock, and playing his cello are part of his life.
