Every now and then, at the end of a call shift, I leave the hospital with aching feet and heavy eyelids. And then I remember: I am the lucky one. I am the one who gets to go home. My patients – the grandfather whose kidneys are failing, the ten-year-old with meningitis – are not so lucky. They will not go home tonight. They may never go home again.
Read moreHow We Doctors Learn How to Act and React by USC Keck School of Medicine medical student Angela Tang-Tan
I am at the point in medical school that I can forget how strange a place the hospital is. Most days, I pre-round around 5am and I leave as the pink and gold of sunset reflects in the windows of the inpatient tower. I no longer smell the antiseptic that pervades the air. I write my notes oblivious to the announcements of “code blue” or “stroke team activation” playing over the intercom. When I walk through the hallways, there is purpose in my strides. The core clinical rotations that every medical student undergoes (family medicine, surgery, pediatrics, etc.) are a time for exploration and the forging of identity. We learn: This is how doctors act and react.
Read moreThresholds and Doorways: Exploring Mental Health Narratives Through Art by Emory MD/PhD candidate Aubrey Reed
© Beyond the Threshold Aubrey Reed Spring 2024 Intima
My first-ever clerkship rotation as a medical student immersed me in the realm of inpatient psychiatry. This profound and eye-opening experience blurred the boundaries between sickness and health. It challenged my preconceived notions and deepened my understanding of mental illness.
Read moreOur Body is an Ecosystem: A reflection by Jeanne Yu
I came across two Intima pieces in conversation with my recently published poem, “Mercury, A Public Service Announcement” When I was younger, I took my body for granted. I thought medical science or pharmaceuticals would patch all my future ills. Wanting to live life to the fullest made it difficult in my busy life to do more than what was needed at that moment and then move on ... but as I age, I find my body has kept score and is less resilient.
Read moreMoving into Compassion, One Small Moment at a Time by anesthesiologist Molly McCormick
I think about time a lot now. My days are ruled by schedules and cases and meetings, and I spend much of my day reacting to the pressures of the unrelenting sweep of the second hand as it moves around turning into minutes and hours, never slow enough for me to accomplish everything I need to do.
Read moreIt’s Happening to Me, Too: Reflections on Interconnectedness, Interdependence, and Independence in Caregiving Relationships by Leena Ambady
“Every thought begins with I. This is happening to him, I try to say,
not happening to me. But it is, too. This is my place to tell it.”
The above is an excerpt from Kristin Camitta Zimet’s “A Dialysis Diary,” (Intima, Fall 2023). In this beautiful essay, Camitta Zimet writes about her husband’s end-stage kidney disease, the initiation of dialysis, and the impact that his chronic condition and the treatment it required had both on her and her relationship.
Read moreListening to Beethoven: A Reflection on Professional Responsibility and Personal Recognition by poet Susan Carlson
“I like Beethoven the best!” is a declaration made by a patient of Mitali Chaudhary, as she readies to leave his hospital room. A busy senior medical resident at the University of Toronto, Chaudhary juggles many demanding responsibilities with her desire to get to know this elderly patient. In her Field Notes essay titled “Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5,” published in Intima’s Fall 2023 issue, she recalls how she’d tried to get her patient to respond to questions about symptomatology, all the while aware that twenty-three other patients – along with a group of junior residents and medical students – were awaiting her time and attention. In that moment, she finds herself turning away from an opportunity for a personal interaction with him in order to ensure she manages her tasks appropriately.
Read moreThe Thing About ‘Good News’ at the Doctor’s Office by neuropsychology postdoc fellow Sarajane Rodgers
In theory, whenever we go to the doctor, most of us want to hear “good news.” The test is negative. You don’t have ___. Your results are inconsistent with ___. There are times where we take that in and walk away with an emotional weight removed. Other times, we are left with a void. The diagnosis we thought we could hang a hat on is taken away. Now where do we put our hat?
Read moreOn Subtraction: Understanding What's Lost and Gained in Clinical Encounters by Abby Wheeler
I recognized right away a kinship with Bessie Liu’s “Variations on the Negative Space Before Healing” (Fall 2023) and its use of subtraction to create new meaning; The poem by Liu, a third-year medical student at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. very much feels like a sister to my poem, At the Doctor’s Office, I Check, Yes, I Have Experienced the Following: Sudden Weight Loss (Fall 2023).
Read moreOn Sinatra, Bach, and Daughters: The Power of True Joy in the Face of Illness
A medical student reflects on the loss of their father to a devastating neurodegenerative disease as well as the power that music can hold during the illness experience.
Read moreReligious Moments in Medical Practice by internist John Pierce
A retired physician reflects on his glimpses into religion and spirituality while confronting his patients’ illness and suffering—as well as his own.
Read moreLet Me Speak My Free Mind into You: Seeking Genuine Connection in Medical Practice
A medical student examines two poems published in this journal in order to advocate for genuine connection in medical practice between patients and physicians.
Read moreTaking Him Apart Took Me Apart, Too: On medical school and anatomy class by Chrissie DyBuncio
A former physician reflects on the rite of passage undergone by all medical students: cadaver dissections in anatomy lab.
Read moreDesensitization to the Face of Death: A reflection by poet and medical student Catherine Read
A medical student examines the desensitization that imbues the study and practice of medicine—and advocates against it.
Read moreThe Luxury of Walking Away: An MS4 meditates on time, isolation and the comforts of home
A medical student contemplates her roles as a physician-in-training and learns to appreciate the privilege she possesses—unlike her patients—in walking away from the clinical space.
Read moreThe Gifts Reserved for Age: A Reflection by Richard Scott Morehead
A professor of medicine reminisces about his former student, whose work appears alongside his own in this very journal.
Read moreCuring Bodies: How Uncertainty and Variation Shape Early Experiences in Medicine by Anna Harvey Bluemel
A physician reflects on the uncertainty that comes with the study of the human body, and the unpredictability that comes with the pursuit of medicine.
Read moreTo Enhance, Supplement, and Support
What is the physician’s role in the clinical encounter, and what is their responsibility to the patient? A physician reflects.
Read moreBedside Mannerisms: Finding the time to care by pediatrics resident Vidya Viswanathan
In medical training, there is an increasing didactic focus on empathy and professionalism. In many of these sessions, I have learned certain skills: Sit down at the patient’s level. Ask them open-ended questions. Don’t interrupt. Use an in-person, video or phone interpreter. These skills are helpful. But often, they run up against the great limiting factor in many of our clinical encounters: time.
Read moreOn Vulnerability and Transformation, a reflection on open hearts and medical training by hematologist-oncologist Jennifer Lycette
“Retrospection Series” (Fall 2019 Intima), Joseph Burns writes on undergoing open-heart surgery at age twenty-three, only two months before In he started medical school. At first, he is reluctant to share his story with his peers. “It was a secret that was contained within the walls of the physical exam simulation rooms.” But as his training moves forward, he is motivated by his experiences “to become the best physician possible…to be the one who provides care, love, compassion, and primarily hope in situations where all may seem lost.”
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