Katrina Kostro, MD, graduated from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons in Spring 2020, and was selected into the Gold Humanism Honor Society. She will begin psychiatry residency training at NYU/Bellevue. Katrina strives … — Katrina Kostro, MD, graduated from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons in Spring 2020, and was selected into the Gold Humanism Honor Society. She will begin psychiatry residency training at NYU/Bellevue. Katrina strives to combine yoga, meditation, poetry, and art, into her practice of clinical healing. Katrina’s poem “E.R. prophet, night shift/Spring 2020” appears in the Spring issue of the *Intima*.

Whatever the diagnosis or prognosis, being a patient often includes elements of fear. In Ryan Brewster’s studio art piece, “The Patient is Scared” (Intima Fall 2019), we see a person (the patient) lying on the OR table, “bathed in light with arms splayed out like the crucifixion,” as the Intima blurb describes. The patient’s head rests on a white pillow, hair tucked neatly into a blue surgical cap. Eyes are closed: has the patient already imbibed the anesthesia cocktail? Waiting. Black wires snake in and out of the frame: center left and right, a wire loops over the patient’s bare upper-chest/shoulders, and descends under the pale blue sterile drape covering the rest of the patient’s otherwise naked torso. Far right, a thicker black tube exits out of the frame, from the blood pressure cuff wrapped tightly around the patient’s left arm. Lower left, the surgical tray hovers above the patient’s abdomen, featuring surgical clamps, scalpel, and a silver-crescent suturing needle, waiting to sew flesh. Other than the light highlighting the three-quarter profile of the patient’s face, the color scheme is saturated with a dark blue-grey hue, almost dream—or nightmare—like, offering a tone to match the title, the patient is scared.

My poem, “E.R. prophet, night shift/Spring 2020” (Intima Spring 2020), features a patient in the emergency room (ER) at night – who, like the person in Brewster’s piece, is scared. In the poem’s opening line, the patient repeats a question back to the provider: “You ask me am I suicidal?” Crucial information for the assessment of any patient, especially in the ER setting, at night, in the heightened stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. “How high’s my fever?” the patient asks. This patient – whose belongings (“my coins, cats – my best stuff”) were taken away by patient’s mother (“she’s rough”) – claims to be “an orphan.” The patient feels alone, abandoned, and, presumably, scared. However, unlike Brewster’s patient – supine, eyes and mouth closed, in the sterile, highly controlled OR – the patient in my poem “spits hot words into air/ […] eyes wide – ” and yells at the nurse, “Shut your fat mouth!” This patient’s fear boils into anger. Rather than succumb to anesthesia-induced stillness in the OR, like Brewster’s patient, this ER patient tries to demonstrate autonomy and freedom. In the poem’s final couplet, the patient provokes, “Look at me, six feet – see? I’m breeeaathing –” – defiantly exhaling when noses and mouths require covering at all times. The patient is hoping to be “virus-free,” but, in the ER, test results still unknown. Patients – and providers – especially in the COVID19 pandemic, face so much uncertainty – whether in OR, ER, or quarantined at home. So, in the end of my poem, the patient dares, “Watch me leave, I’m flying. Flying.” And in Brewster’s piece, the patient’s arms “splayed out like the crucifixion,” or, like flying – perhaps a way to escape fear.

Katrina Kostro, MD, graduated from Columbia University VagelosCollege of Physicians &Surgeons in Spring 2020, and was selected into the Gold Humanism Honor Society. She willbegin psychiatry residency training at NYU/Bellevue. She received her BA in art historyfrom Barnard College. Before medical school, she became a certified yoga instructor, and hastaught multiple yoga/meditation workshops for students, physicians, patients, andcaregivers. Her poems have appeared inBigCityLit,Mezzo Cammin,Reflexions: The Literary &Fine Arts Journal of CUIMC, and she was anaward-winner in NEOMED’s 35thWilliam CarlosWilliams Poetry Competition. Katrina strives to combine yoga, meditation, poetry, and art,into her practice of clinical healing.