Bun
Filled with fear and pain but love and hate / To raise it alone since he never agreed
Off the Shelf
Off the Shelf is our section for creative works by medical students.
Pre-Medical Guest Writer
Rutgers University
Elo is a senior at Rutgers University in New Jersey. She is earning a major in biology and a minor in creative writing and aspires to attend medical school after she graduates. Elo is a teaching assistant in the physics department and co-founded the first undergraduate lifestyle medicine interest group in the region. She spends most of her spare time immersed in the arts including writing and painting. She writes because it's how she best expresses herself. It's not a hobby; it's a lifestyle.
Emma
We stand beneath tin roofs / with raindrops on our lips / regret behind our eyes.
Gluteus Maximus
Deeper than its captivating shape / lies a greater purpose.
Rise
So, one way or another / I keep craning my neck / Looking up.
The Weight of a Smile
I’ve thought about this for quite a while: / How much I owe to just a smile.
My Mask
We all earn our way here / Paid in hours of studying / and minutes of fun lost.
Impostor or Two Sides of the Same Coin?
“Eager and enthusiastic” / As I drag myself from bed. / “Positive energy” / Do you have an injury to your head?
A Crab in the Swell
I float in an ocean of sterile cerulean. / In this deep of drapery and gowns, / One could swim out and never see the shore.
Conjunction
I am waiting for my coffee when / a middle-aged Turkish man / asks if I am a medical student
Loving Her Dearly
When the love of my life started medical school, I knew she would need all of my support to get through it. I knew this because she told me.
Just a Few Minutes Before 6 A.M. Rounds
5:37 a.m. in hospital scrubs / Just a few minutes with each patient.
Penumbra
And now here she was, in the family lounge at a hospital waiting to speak to her father’s neurologist. Her dad, Ricky, had collapsed at work — or so she had been told. This was the most she had heard of her father’s life since she moved out of the house.
Writer-in-Training
Queen's University School of Medicine
Maggie Hulbert is a third year medical student at Queen's University School of Medicine in Kingston, Canada. In 2015, she graduated from Queen's University with a Bachelor of Science in life sciences. She is an active member of the medical humanities community and spent this past year developing the first Jacalyn Duffin Health and Humanities Conference. Her favorite writers include Danielle Ofri, Roxane Gay, and Samantha Irby. After graduating medical school, Maggie would like to pursue a career in Psychiatry.