Caught between Floating and Drowning, a reflection about poetry, memory and adapting to chaos by Mikayla Brockmeyer

A state of flux. The COVID-19 pandemic has induced a state of “How will I react to _____?” Listlessness and emotional exhaustion bring about feelings of isolation and longing to be somewhere we are not. Yet, in learning to modify behaviors, collaborations have emerged.

In the opening couplet to Sheila Kelly’s poem entitled “Breathe” (Fall 2017 Intima). she sets the stage and introduces a poignant metaphor, depicting calmness, yet incertitude.

You are floating in the swimming pool again.
Your childhood best friend rises like prayer.

“Breathe” was penned well before the current pandemic, yet the feelings of serenity and safety one day, and panic the next, expressed are relevant today. Using a second-person narrative, she paints a vivid picture of a disjointed home life, sifting through old, painful memories. In the poem, the main character is catapulting between chaos and “floating in the swimming pool.” At the end, I interpret a sense of adaptation from the character that leaves a residue of hope.

In my essay “Turbulent Undertow” (Fall 2020 Intima), parallel feelings are grappled with, as I describe a surfing attempt, and later, my experience as a hospitalist scribe. Woven together, I write about two near-drowning experiences: on surfing and on caring for patients with COVID-19. The best friend in Sheila Kelly’s poem encourages the main character to put on her old swimsuit when distressed. After a long series of days working with the hospitalist, I, too, wanted to offer solace. But instead, all I could offer was “Glad you’re okay,” a phrase that has reverberated through my brain ever since I first heard it myself.

Riding metaphorical surfboards together and finding ways to float in metaphorical swimming pools may not be the best solution to curb the emotional toll of the pandemic. However, validation and shared human connection serve as two ways to avoid possible drowning amidst the pandemic waves.

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Mikayla Brockmeyer

Mikayla Brockmeyer is a first year osteopathic medical student at Des Moines University in Des Moines, Iowa. She began working as a hospitalist scribe in 2018, while she was enrolled in the Master of Science in Biomedical Sciences program at Des Moines University. She successfully defended her thesis in 2019 and spent her gap year scribing full time. This is her first time showcasing her storytelling abilities in a public arena. Her non-fiction essay “Turbulent Undertow” appears in the Fall 2020 Intima.

On “When Suicide Speaks Arabic”: A Deeply-felt Call for Cultural Representation in Medicine by Sunidhi Ramesh

A suicide attempt. A Syrian teenager. A team of American psychiatrists whose training suggests he is out of the woods. But, to Dr. Ibrahim Sablaban, something does not sit right. The son of Arab refugees, Dr. Sablaban sees hidden red flags in the teenager’s story.

“When Suicide Speaks Arabic” (Fall 2020 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine) is a story of quiet compassion. It is a story of intuition born from upbringing—of a physician who sees a slice of himself in a patient who is in need of understanding.

It is also, at its core, a story about cultural representation. Dr. Sablaban instantly connects with his young patient by speaking in Arabic (citing that he had “already heard [the] story in English, and from [his] experience, it could be a distant language”). He is able to parse out the boy’s feelings of shame and sinfulness by referring to his own understanding of the Islamic faith. This was not at all the patient he had heard of earlier during rounds; this “was a tragedy waiting to happen.”

Dr. Sablaban’s story of connecting with and ultimately facilitating better treatment for this young Syrian boy can be viewed as a stroke of luck—a happy encounter and a happy ending. But he ends his piece with a striking sentence: “I can’t help but feel like it was more a story about failure than success.”

And it could be made out to be that way. Many knowledgeable and experienced physicians spoke to the patient before Dr. Sablaban did. Yet, it was his cultural knowledge, not his medical knowledge, that ultimately helped this boy.

Some sobering statistics: 0.4% of US medical doctors are Hispanic, while Hispanic individuals make up 17% of the American population.1 4% of US medical doctors are African American, while African American individuals make up 13% of the American population.1 Similar statistics hold for the majority of minority groups throughout the country. This lack of racial representation in medicine is widely cited, and efforts (albeit small ones) are underway to address it.2

Dr. Sablaban’s story, however, is about more than racial representation. Race is not equivalent to a language. Or a culture. Or religion. Race is not at all encompassing, and racial representation would not have been enough to fully address this teenager’s needs. Perhaps, then, there must be an adjustment to the discussion about diversity in medicine—about the need for physicians who “look” (i.e., race and gender) more like the population they are serving.

Perhaps the need is for physicians who simply are more like the populations they serve—who speak the languages, practice the religions, and have had the experiences that their patients face every day.


References

1. Sullivan, Louis W. Missing persons: minorities in the health professions, a report of the Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce. 2004.
2. Cohen, Jordan J., Barbara A. Gabriel, and Charles Terrell. "The case for diversity in the health care workforce." Health affairs 21.5 (2002): 90-102.

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Sunidhi Ramesh is an MD Candidate at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Emory University in 2018 with degrees in sociology and neuroscience and is the managing editor of "The Neuroethics Blog." She has also served as the education co-director for the Philadelphia Human Rights Clinic. Ramesh’s writing has been featured in Stroke and Vascular Neurology, Retina Today, and the American Journal of Neuroradiology. She authored the Winning Essay in the 2019 International Neuroethics Society Essay Competition and has written chapters on neuroethics and neurotechnology in various textbooks. Ramesh works on research spanning neurology and neurosurgery, particularly focused on perceptions of invasive brain surgery, intra-arterial chemotherapy, and the implementation of tele-stroke protocols in hospital emergency rooms. Her non-fiction essay “3:43 AM” appears in the Fall 2020 Intima. @sunidhiramesh

On Bodies and Minds: A Reflection on Raina Greifer’s Artwork 'Bodies' by Diane Forman

Raina Greifer’s artwork “Bodies” (Spring 2018 Intima) compels viewers to confront their own preconceptions and biases about body form. Her three headless, faceless bodies, of various sizes and depths, present a seemingly endless network of intertwined organs and bones, of breastplates and intestines and veins. Greifer urges the viewer to consider vulnerability, in the context of these drawings.

©Bodies by Raina Greifer. Spring 2018 Intima

Of course the body is much more than a composite of bones and organs, but a human cannot survive without the exquisite interplay of these parts. Greifer’s drawing asks me to consider not only the body’s intricate internal structure, but the external form shown to the world. Although the drawings are deliberately missing heads, the artist highlights the theme of vulnerability, which can only be contemplated through the integral component of the mind. Our minds magnify our vulnerability; our thoughts determine how we visualize ourselves, how we feel in our own skin.

After a lifetime of my own struggle with body dysmorphia, I was forced to confront both the mind and body’s strength and fragility when dealing with my daughter’s restrictive eating disorder, explored in my piece “Holding my Breath” (Spring 2020 Intima). Helplessly, I witnessed the ways in which the body fails without sufficient nutrition; how the body is reduced to conserving energy for the heart, brain, muscles, digestion. The body truly becomes a vessel of organs and bones all vying to survive.

But the starved mind is trying to survive too. Recovery is dependent on replenishing not only the organs with required energy, but the mind with recognition of the body's miracle and potential, whatever its size. I value Raina Greifer’s artwork, which encourages me to consider the vulnerability of the mind, and its intimate connection with the complexity of the body.

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Diane Forman is a writer and educator. After a long career as writing tutor and educational consultant, Forman is currently working on a series of essays and a memoir. Additionally, she leads adult writing groups and retreats on the north shore of Boston. She holds a BS in English and Education from Northwestern University, and an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and is an AWA affiliate, trained and certified to lead workshops in the AWA (Amherst Artists and Writers) method. Her non-fiction essay “Holding My Breath” appeared in the Spring 2020 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine.

Poetry and Music: How Each Word in a Poem Reflects an Emotion by Anna Delamerced

Life is full of joy and sorrow. The melodies of life involve not only high moments, but low ones, too. My grandmother has lived through more than ninety decades. In those years she has endured war, found love, mourned the loss of relatives, suffered illness, survived a train crash, and discovered new happiness in grandchildren.

 Each day carries a crossroads of pain and hope, suffering and healing. In my poem Evening Music, I sought to portray these crossroads. Words like “pillow”and “wooden bench” were written in the same line to juxtapose the softness and harshness of life. “Paper fan” and “electric fan” are used to show the fragility and strength in my grandmother. I wrote the final line, “She plays the piano even in the dark” to show that even if my grandmother has suffered much, she still sees light in the dark and makes something beautiful.

Ellen Sazzman’s poem Assisted Living Lullaby (Fall 2016 Intima) resonated with me and echoed similar sentiments. The words “lullaby” and “assisted living” brought together images of youth and old age in my mind. Life seems cyclical, as we sing lullabies to both infants and seniors. Music compels us to meditate on life, stirring memories of a wide breadth of emotions, from sad memories to happy ones.

Working in the medical world has reiterated the juxtaposition of the sorrows and joys of life. Each day in the hospital sees both life and death. How do we navigate all this? Do the sorrows make the joys all the sweeter? I do not have all the answers, but perhaps it is in poetry where I can wrestle with these thoughts and experiences. Writing allows us to wade in the gray, to make music in the dark.

Anna Delamerced is a medical student at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. She received funding through the Bray Medical Humanities Fellowship to pursue a year-long project, focusing on poetry for kids in the hospital. Her works have been published in KevinMD, Medscape, Abaton, Plexus, Murmur, Cornerstone and in-Training. She is passionate about listening to people tell their stories. Her poem “Evening Music” appears in the Spring 2020 Intima.