Clash of the Experts
We’re overloaded with so much advice, so many ideas on how to be a better doctor, / how do we decide what to follow and what to ignore?
Off the Shelf is our section for creative works by medical students.
We’re overloaded with so much advice, so many ideas on how to be a better doctor, / how do we decide what to follow and what to ignore?
This is a space / between you and me / where you can simply be
like breath in our lungs / we do not notice it / until it is gone
I am from wide-toothed combs / pulled through tangled hair. / I am from rumbling yellow school buses
High potassium? / How did this happen so fast? / Secret burrito.
Yet another Black man murdered. / I am not Black, I am not White, but I am American. / We were established on the idea of a collective “we” — we, the people, despite creed or color.
A mourning sun cries as she tucks away / the night to uncover red and blues / lumps of fabric and skin on gritty sand below.
There’s so much more to do, / there’s so much more to say, / I just hope we can change / and create a new way.
Am I essential? / A med student waiting for change, / inundated with facts and figures. / Am I just in the way?
I agree that protesting is best done in peace, / But wasn’t that tried by taking a knee? / Or hashtags that said Black Lives Matter, / And praying that change would come with the chatter.
I stand for justice and peace; / I stand for equity alongside equality. / I stand until the hate crimes cease.
Tonight, there are families who will go to bed / Without having eaten dinner. They will slip / Through sheets of faded blue, stained with