A Second Start
This beating heart / Gave me a second start / It gave me a reason to be / To be me
Off the Shelf
Off the Shelf is our section for creative works by medical students.
Contributing Writer
Drexel University College of Medicine
Jason Roley is a second-year medical student at Drexel University College of Medicine (’18) and a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley (’12). He is interested in Addiction Psychiatry and passionate about working with vulnerable patient populations. Adventurous and open-minded, Jason not only enjoys an interdisciplinary approach to medicine but also life, emphasizing the mind body balance in every day living.
Anatomy as Art: Installation #10
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.
A Student of Faith and Failure
If not determination, / If not strength of will, / If not true passion, / If not a desire to heal
Count The Snakes You See
you may have seen / serpents before / on a white coat lapel / or a hospital door
Atlas (2015)
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.
The Madness
There is a writhing feeling deep within me / below the surface but always present / With the passing years it creeps up silently / searching for release.
Anencephaly
Normally I’m itching / hustling / to be involved in a delivery.
Away Rotation
Am I in the right place? / What’s this person’s name again? / I discovered the door code! / No more waiting outside for someone to let me in.
Anatomy as Art: Installation #9
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.
That One Time
Exquisite Eliza Jean, / Oh my, our 22nd playdate and I still have so much adrenaline; / Last time I thought I might lose my finest specimen. / Yesterday while under the scalpel, dear Betsy barely made a sound, / So please take heed, and don’t excessively squirm around.
Minneapolis
Your scent, black, / like coffee the morning after. / The boy’s blue coat is yours.
Anatomy as Art: Installation #8
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.
Medical Student Editor and in-Training Staff Member Emeritus
University of Florida Fixel Movement and Neurorestoration Institute
Nita Chen is a current movement disorders fellow at University of Florida Movement and Neurorestoration program. She is Class of 2017 medical student at Albany Medical College. To become cultural, she spent her early educational years in Taiwan and thoroughly enjoyed wonderful Taiwanese food and milk tea, thus ruining her appetite for the rest of her life in the United States. Aside from her neuroscience and cognitive science majors during her undergraduate career, she holed herself up in her room writing silly fictional stories, doodling, and playing the piano. Or she could be found spazzing out like a gigantic science nerd in various laboratories. Now she just holes up in her room to study most of the time.