Ms. Metaphysics
I am sitting in school / but I am also thinking of you. // Yes, I do / wonder how consciousness / wraps round and round / this hunk of meat, / how chunks of flesh / sustain your metaphysical feat.
Off the Shelf
Off the Shelf is our section for creative works by medical students.
Contributing Writer
Emory University School of Medicine
John is a third-year medical student at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA class of 2022. In 2017, he graduated from the University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Science in microbiology. He enjoys playing soccer, going on runs around town, and reading/writing poems in his free time. After graduating medical school, John would like to pursue a career in either neuropathology or emergency medicine.
Weather This Weather
if we can just cling / and weather this weather, / we can make some things / much better and better.
A Blue-Lit Room
In a hospital room lit blue / By the rays entering in from the clouded sun
COVID Burnout
I’m not the first to think / under my breath, even out loud: / To test positive for Covid. / Even after this morning.
An Ode to Paul Hoover
Secret / The caterpillar munching on hair / beneath your scrub cap
2020
Some days, I only feel disillusion of the soul / that yearns for bear hugs, game nights, Nana’s pecan pie.
‘Twas the Block Before Step
‘Twas the block before Step, and all through the school / not a student was stirring — no one was a fool
Attack of the Meconium
5:00 am, the first day on the night shift, / six deliveries completed and only one hour remains. / A call from the nurse says the patient in 14 is five centimeters dilated, / and so we enter the room to rupture her membranes.
Centimeters
The clock strikes midnight and just like that, / she’s been laboring for 10 hours as expected, / time flies when you can’t feel contraction pain.
A Nation on My Shoulders
Failure was never an option for me. // Every time I fail… / I am reminded that I have let my country down.
The Broken Ones
Send us the broken, the battered, / “give me your tired, your poor,” / your torn and tattered.
To Be a Kid
Just a five-year-old kid / Yet always in and out of the hospital, / Since her first beautiful breath / Through each breath after, / With her life-giving / Yet ever-faltering lungs.
Contributing Writer
Boston University School of Medicine
Chandni Jain (she/her/hers) is a fourth-year medical student at Boston University School of Medicine in Boston, MA, Class of 2021. In 2015, she graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in molecular and cell biology and a minor in global poverty and practice, after completing an internship at the Family Planning Institute of India working on reproductive health education and access as a means to address poverty. She then worked for two years as the Northwest Region Community Engagement Fellow at UNICEF USA to advocate for the world's most vulnerable children. She enjoys dancing, painting, yoga, and vegan cooking in her free time.
After graduating from medical school, Chandni would like to pursue a career in pediatrics and looks forward to working with underserved communities. Her passions include adolescent and reproductive health, social/racial and health equity, universal healthcare, and environmentalism.