Columnist
A Chicago Medical School
Kate Bock has been writing since she was five years old. She considers "DW Goes to the Beach" to be her finest accomplishment, rendered in marker, green construction paper, and stickers. She studied fiction writing at Northwestern University, where she led a small group of poets called The Slam Society. She studies medicine as an M3 at a Chicago medical school.
Review of Systems
Medical students’ place in the hierarchy of medicine means we are routinely restricted in what we can (or should) say. That taboo list includes our own transformation–despite being only one of thousands impacted by medical education, all too often we are left alone to process how it changes us. Review of Systems is a series of down-to-earth slam poems by Kate Bock, putting words to the unspoken process not just of learning medicine, but of becoming a doctor.
Medical students’ place in the hierarchy of medicine means we are routinely restricted in what we can (or should) say. That taboo list includes our own transformation — despite being only one of thousands impacted by medical education, all too often we are left alone to process how it changes us. Review of Systems is a series of down-to-earth slam poems by Kate Bock, putting words to the unspoken process not just of learning medicine, but of becoming a doctor.
To me, hitting a tennis ball is a symbol of how we as medical students perceive mental health: we know very well what habits are good for us and which are not. We know that we need eight to nine hours of sleep each night, a healthy diet and regular exercise. We know to engage in positive thinking, to nurture healthy relationships while cutting out toxic ones and to take time to “take care of ourselves” even when we are at our most stressed.
The beginning of third year clerkships is an exciting time for medical students. The first step of my licensing exam was finally behind me and now I could focus on applying the knowledge into a clinical context. I had heard a lot of stories about the third year of medical school. Perhaps what stood out most were the reflections shared with me when people witnessed death for the first time. From full codes to hospice patients, something about death seemed to draw out the most intense emotions and thoughts that can change lives forever. Although I always try to do the best for my patients, I knew it was inevitable that I would come across death. I wondered what profound thoughts and reflections I would have when I experienced it for the first time. It wasn’t too long before I was called to do CPR in the emergency department and I found it did not play out as I expected.
At Albany Medical College, upon our orientation to gross anatomy, we are asked to draw our feelings on blank index cards prior to entering the cadaver laboratory. As we progress through the year, our sentiments regarding anatomy may remain the same, or may change, and these drawings allow us to look back at this milestone we crossed as budding medical students.
Everyone told me medical school would be hard. I thought I was prepared, but nothing actually prepares you for medical school like being in medical school. I was accustomed to working long hours, the constant stress of exams and little sleep. What I wasn’t accustomed to was the absolute dearth of creativity in the coursework.
Recent announcements by the British government that a revised contract on junior physicians’ salary and working hours across England will be imposed has come under intense scrutiny. Criticisms from the national workforce to media figures and opposing party politicians have ranged from accusations of compromising patient safety to ensuing longer working hours with reduced pay as compared to the current scheme for around 55,000 affected doctors. But the retaliating strikes on part of the National Health Service (NHS) workforce in protest have certainly proved controversial.
This is the first installation of a three-part series entitled “Ten Lessons from Flint” in which I speak with Professor Marc Edwards of Virginia Tech, pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha of Hurley Children’s Hospital, and Michigan State University and interim Dean Dr. Aron Sousa of Michigan State University.
As an “underrepresented minority” in medicine, my personal experiences of mistreatment while navigating the challenges of pursuing this career are mostly invisible to the rest of society, but I know that they are far from mythical or unique. In fact, my experiences harmonize perfectly with the tales of so many African-American physicians before me and even in the accounts of the students I currently mentor. Everyone asks, “Aren’t things different now for African-Americans?” Yes. But, are they better? Sadly, not exactly.
Like many bibliophiles, I keep a running list of books “To Read”, and I have a complicated system for deciding what I will read next; because of this, any new recommendation must go to the end of the queue. Every now and then, though, a book comes along that disrupts my whole system. In this case, I read an excerpt in The New Yorker that moved me: I was struck by the clarity of the writing and finished the excerpt wanting to know more. Over the next week, three different people recommended it and I began seeing it everywhere. Sensing that this book was something important, I bought and immediately began reading When Breath Becomes Air by Dr. Paul Kalanithi.
The idea for this piece came to me in the last few weeks of my first-year anatomy class. I wanted to create a work for my school’s annual Service of Gratitude, where the class commemorates those individuals who donated their bodies for our education. I won’t say too much about the piece, as I’d like to allow the viewer his or her own experience. I will just say that learning about the human body for the first time through gross “sections,” radiographic “slices” and illustrated muscle groups in various atlases came with a bizarre, inhuman — or inhumane, even — feeling to it. I could not stop thinking about how learning the human body meant that I had to study it in its most mutilated forms. It was just too ironic.
Cadaver. The word itself seems devoid of life. And, so too does the white plastic bag lying unceremoniously before me. It’s the first day of anatomy, and I unzip the tarp and stare down at a wet, grey lump of clay. There it is. There is what, exactly? What was I expecting? Some warm human soul, freshly sprung from the loins of life? No. That’s not this. The essence of life is gone — absolutely, irrevocably, unquestionably, gone.
On a recent visit to my parents’ home in Upstate New York, just as the snow had finished melting and our tulips were beginning to sprout, my dad and I went out for a walk. As we made our way down our driveway to the railroad-tracks-turned-walking-trail that runs through the woods near our house, we bumped into one of my dad’s patients. With a hearty grin, the middle-aged man proudly told my dad how his morning blood sugars were improving. My dad beamed, and gave him a big high five. Later, as we walked along the trail, he told me how thrilled he was to see this patient getting the exercise that would help treat his diabetes and high blood pressure.
Contributing Writer Emeritus
Harvard Medical School
Colleen Farrell is a fourth year medical student at Harvard Medical School. She is a member of the Student Leadership Committee of the Harvard Center for Primary Care, a guest editor of the AMA Journal of Ethics, and plays violin in the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, Boston's medical community orchestra. She is currently writing a memoir about her medical education. She plans to pursue a career in primary care.
