Resident Physician Contributing Writer
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center
Ervin (Erv) is beginning his general intern year at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and recently graduated from the Uniformed Services Univerity of the Health Sciences in May 2022. While in medical school, he was the co-director for the on-campus peer-led curriculum aimed to foster conversations about diversity, bias, discrimination, and inclusion in both medicine and the military. His interests include medical education, promoting diversity, and utilizing the arts to augment the healing nature of medicine.
These poem stanzas help to provide further fidelity on the small specialty that is Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PM&R). While many other specialties focus on specific organs, “our organ” is function and this piece hopefully sheds some light on how we preserve it and improve it in all the patients we treat.
Medical student recollects hospitalization with pneumonia as a pivotal childhood experience that shaped his values. The care he received from dedicated clinicians and his family instilled trust and resilience, inspiring his pursuit of medicine. These reflections resurfaced during his white coat ceremony, affirming his commitment to embodying these principles in his future practice.
The poem describes the profound impact of an encounter between Catherin Potin, the narrator, recovering from a motor vehicle accident, and a young patient with a similar experience. Throughout our interaction, the patient’s strength and resilience illuminate a path towards healing, showing the narrator the power of shared vulnerability in overcoming trauma. This encounter serves as a reminder of the reciprocal nature of healing in medicine and the personal growth that can arise from patient interactions.
Taylor Selby wrote this poem while trying to manage her time between studying for boards and her grandmas birthday party. To her, it means prioritizing her relationships and mental health while still working towards the goal to be an intelligent and caring doctor.
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.
Medical student Sabrina Lazar discovers a local MENA-owned grocery store that offers not only essential ingredients but also a sense of community.
Dr. Ervin Anies reflects on the highs and lows of the transitional intern year with a series of poignant cinquains.
Medha Palnati describes an encounter she had with a patient who she met at the Backstretch Clinic, a clinic that serves the undocumented workers that care for the horses at the racetrack, as he was having a myocardial infarction. This encounter highlights the conversation Medha had with this patient while waiting for the ambulance to transport him to the hospital, and the solace that they found in each other in that moment.
Medical student Varesh Gorabi is reminded of the importance of empathy during a seemingly routine clinic visit.
Rachel Lawson describes her challenging experiences during her first year of medical school at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and how her experience was profoundly impacted by a vaccination clinic.
Medical student Saud Rehman has written a collection of poems focusing on the lockdown of March 2020 with artwork to give a visual representation of how he felt. Often times the manifestations of moods unrelated to coursework go overlooked, especially in medicine, and Saud hopes that these provide a representation of the humanity behind students going through difficult times.
Medical Student Contributing Writer
CUNY School of Medicine
Saud is a first generation third year medical student at the CUNY School of medicine from Brooklyn. Saud has interests in interventional radiology, patient centered care, and educational medicine. Saud uses poetry and artistic visuals as a form of expression & catharsis. His other interests include hiking, bike-riding, cooking, and basketball.
