Just a Medical Student
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m just a med student. The rest of the team will be here shortly, they’ll explain everything to you.” We wait in silence.
Off the Shelf is our section for creative works by medical students.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m just a med student. The rest of the team will be here shortly, they’ll explain everything to you.” We wait in silence.
His diseased lungs / stiff like dry clay / function like gills out of the water.
she is curled on her side like a child / eyes closed, back exposed.
Physicians give their heart and soul to the practice of medicine. Caring for patients at their most vulnerable moments is a heavy responsibility and privilege that medical professionals must carry.
Dying is not / as romantic as I once thought. / I think you always knew this.
This is a reimagination of anatomy from the outside in.
Our successes are born out of / The communities that uplifted us. / The teachers that pushed us.
The intruder slithers in at midnight, / slinking his way to the boy fast asleep, / the tangled mess of hospital wires his field of untrimmed grass,
As I step carefully into the sterile field / past the rows of scalpels, forceps and clamps, / I sense a gentle fluttering in my chest.
Should the symbol of medicine bear one snake or two? / If you answered two, then the joke is on you! / Or, at least, that’s the current popular view.
I imagine her mother / Squeezing daughter’s limp hand / Silent tears
Anatomy is more than flesh and bone and blood. / It’s more than the donor and the scalpel teaching the student.