Contributing Writer
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School
Rohan is a medical student at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts, Class of 2025. In 2019, he graduated from Northeastern University with a Bachelor of Science in bioengineering. He enjoys bicycling, hiking, rock climbing, and reading in his free time. After graduating medical school, Rohan would like to pursue a career in cardiovascular medicine.
As we got closer to the ED, the excitement evolved into a feeling of discomfort. It was uncomfortable to feel even briefly excited by another person’s misfortune. I felt a sense of disequilibrium as I realized I had strayed from the delicate balance medical students and physicians continually try to find.
It will soon be over seven years since the last time I saw you. It feels like yesterday we were singing along to your favorite song as you drove me to my weekly dance class.
I first wrote to author George Saunders in my senior year of high school. Thankful for everything his writing taught me about empathy, I sought advice as I crossed the “seemingly arbitrary line into adulthood.”
I start the day like most of us do: stimulating the needy vessels we call bodies with caffeine. As I open up my coffee jar to dispense ground Turkish coffee beans, I am met with a hint of loving bitterness. It carries a comforting brown sugar warmth that often stirs a sense of weakness given my inherent dependency on this substance but also commands secure boldness through notes of molasses and dark chocolate.
The once-sterile hospital room had become a sacred space, where the raw emotions of love and loss hung in the air. The young daughter, vibrant in her essence but tethered to life support, teetered on the precipice between existence and the inevitable.
“254?!” I gawk at the glucometer, stunned that Tom’s blood sugar has soared to such heights when it has consistently remained below 125 for the last two weeks. Tom glances up at me with an amused look on his face, clearly entertained by my reaction — “It was probably that pork chop that did it.”
My first time in the operating room (OR) was when I was a junior in college. I was beaming under my mask, so excited to shadow and observe my first surgery ever, a riveting and exotic procedure: a planned and standard laparoscopic cholecystectomy. A friendly circulating nurse that I had been chatting with asked me, “Sabrina, what’s your glove size?”
The first thing I noticed entering Betty’s room was her walls. They were papered, nearly from floor to ceiling, with photographs of celebrities. Taylor Swift, Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran all stared back at me.
After spending nearly a lifetime as a Type A perfectionist who struggled with developing new skills, I had spent the last several years trying to adopt a policy of “practice makes progress.” I have learned to accept the fact that being bad at something is often the first step towards being good at it.
We are given tools to imitate their behavior, in hopes that we ourselves will one day embody that behavior. Mechanical checkboxes on the standardized exam with standardized patients. Cannot forget a single step. But life is not standardized, is it?
Skepticism of health care is widespread throughout some of these communities — rightly so due to historical mistreatment, discrimination and lack of representation along with cultural differences. This distrust may be further strengthened by a patient’s own personal experiences. I respected this wariness, but I had yet to witness it firsthand.
“James” handed me a new tube of toothpaste, the box a familiar green and white. Even without opening it up, I could already smell and taste the “jook-yum” (bamboo salt) I grew up with at my parent’s house.
Writers-in-Training Intern and Contributing Writer
UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
Joyce is a medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in Los Angeles, CA, Class of 2027. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Arts in Health and Humanity in 2016 and a Master of Arts in Occupational Therapy in 2020. She enjoys traveling, exploring new cafes, and spending time with her partner and their cats in her free time. Joyce is currently interested in geriatrics, the intersections of housing, aging, and health, and community wellness.
